f  ir 


M:k       1  i  N 


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LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 

Class 


THE    STEPS    OF    LIFE 
BY   CARL   HILTY 


THE  STEPS  OF  LIFE 

Further  ESSAYS  ON  HAPPINESS 

BY 

CARL    HILTY 

PROFESSOR    OF    CONSTITUTIONAL    LAW 
IN     THE     UNIVERSITY     OF     BERN 

TRANSLATED  BY  MELVIN  BRANDOW 

MINISTER  OF  THE  CHURCH  OF  OUR  FATHER 
IN     LANCASTER,     PENNSYLVANIA 

WITH   AN   INTRODUCTION   BY 
FRANCIS  GREENWOOD   PEABODY 

PROFESSOR  OF  CHRISTIAN  MORALS  IN  HARVARD  UNIVERSITY 


NEW  YORK:  THE  MACMILLAN  CO. 

LONDON:    MACMILLAN   &   CO.,  LTD.  1907 


13: 
H, 


COPYRIGHT,  1907,  BY  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 

Set  up  and  electrotyped.    Published  January,  1907, 


Norwood  Prest 

J.  5.  Cusbing  &  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith  Co. 
Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S. A. 


UNIVERSITY 

OF 

t" 

INTRODUCTION 

The  welcome  offered  to  the  translation  of 
Professor  Hilty  s  "  Happiness  "  amply  jus- 
tifies the  translation  of  a  second  series  of  his 
essays.  The  same  notes  of  tranquil  reflection 
and  keen  observation,  which  have  drawn  to 
the  earlier  volumes  many  readers  both  in  Eu- 
rope and  America,  are  here  struck  again. 
Professor  Hilty  is  not  a  preacher,  and  his 
essays  are  not  sermons.  He  is  a  professor  of 
Constitutional  Law,  and  the  studies  of  life 
which  these  volumes  represent  are  products 
of  his  leisure  hours,  wrought  out  of  his  medi- 
tation and  experience.  Sin  and  sorrow,  cul- 
ture and  courage,  a  just  judgment  of  others, 
a  rational  optimism,  and  a  simple  Christian 
faith  —  these  are  the  "  Steps  of  Life  "  up 
which  this  wise  teacher  mounts,  and  which 
he  invites  thoughtful  readers  to  climb.  Lau- 
rence Oliphant  is  reported  to  have  said  that 
what  England  in  the  nineteenth  century  most 
needed  was  "  a  spiritually  minded  man  of  the 
world  "  —  a  man,  that  is  to  say,  who  could 
live  in  the  world  without  being  subdued  to 
that  he  worked  in,  a  man  who  could  survey 
and  judge  his  world  with  the  sanity  and  in- 
sight of  the  spiritual  mind.  Professor  Hilty 
in  a  very  exceptional  degree  meets  this  test. 


155730 


His  vocation  is  among  the  institutions  of  the 
political  world.  His  last  professional  treatise 
dealt  with  the  history  of  the  Referendum  in 
mediaeval  Switzerland.  When  in  these  Es- 
says he  approaches  the  problems  of  other 
professions,  such  as  those  of  theology  or 
Biblical  criticism,  it  is  as  an  amateur,  who 
satisfies  himself  with  conclusions  which  must 
appear  to  many  minds  untenable.  It  is,  how- 
ever, precisely  this  unprofessional  character 
of  his  reflections  which  gives  them  their  im- 
portance. Here  is  a  learned  man,  whose  busi- 
ness is  with  other  studies,  and  who  has  known 
much  both  of  public  honor  and  of  private 
affliction,  who  refreshes  and  consoles  himself 
with  the  observation  and  interpretation  of 
life,  and  surveys  the  shifting  landscape  of 
human  experience  from  the  height  of  a  re- 
sponsive mind  and  a  chastened  will.  It  is 
the  testimony  of  a  spiritually  minded  man 
of  the  world. 

There  are  signs  enough  at  the  present  time 
that  the  spirit  of  the  age  is  dominated  by  the 
creed  of  commercialism  and  materialism; 
and  there  are  writers  enough  who  deplore  this 
movement  of  events  and-who  prophesy  social 
disasters;  but  something  good  may  be  believed 
of  a  generation  which  is  so  ready  to  welcome 
vi 


books  like  Professor  Hilty's.  It  may  be  true,  as 
has  been  cleverly  said,  that  many  people  like 
to  read  about  the  "  Simple  Life  "  who  have 
not  the  least  idea  of  practising  it;  but  the 
inclination  to  such  literature  may  be  more 
reasonably  traced  to  a  more  serious  cause. 
It  indicates  a  survival,  beneath  the  boister- 
ous prosperity  of  the  time,  of  the  instincls  of 
idealism,  which  still  create  in  great  numbers 
of  persons  a  profound  dissatisfaction  with 
the  commercial  tests  of  happiness  and  suc- 
cess. Never  was  a  generation  less  contented 
than  ours  with  itself,  —  less  satiated  or  tran- 
quil in  spirit.  Increase  of  wealth  has  brought 
with  it  increase  of  restlessness  ;  outward  pros- 
perity has  induced  nervous  prostration;  ex- 
pansion of  opportunity  has  created  expansion 
of  desire.  The  fundamental  problems  of  sin 
and  sorrow  have  become  all  the  more  baffling 
and  mysterious  as  the  superficial  problems 
of  subsistence  and  livelihood  have  been  solved. 
At  such  a  time  it  is  not  surprising  that 
thoughtful  minds  turn  eagerly  to  any  teacher 
who  speaks  with  confidence  of  the  realities 
of  idealism,  who  faces  experience  with  a  se- 
rene hope,  and  who  points  out  the  "  Steps 
of  Life  "  which  lead  toward  the  things  which 
are  unseen  and  eternal.  To  such  readers 


vn 


Professor  Hilty  has  already  brought  courage 
and  fattb,  and  they  will  gladly  accept  his 
further  guidance. 

FRANCIS   G.    PEABODY. 

Harvard  University,  December,  1906. 


Vlll 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

ESSAY    I 

SIN    AND    SORROW  I 

ESSAY    II 

"COMFORT    YE    MY    PEOPLE"  35 

ESSAY   III 

ON    THE    KNOWLEDGE    OF    MEN  53 

ESSAY   IV 

WHAT    IS    CULTURE?  IOQ 

ESSAY  V 

NOBLE    SOULS    *£.  14 1 

ESSAY   VI 

TRANSCENDENTAL    HOPE  165 

ESSAY   VII 

THE    PROLEGOMENA    OF    CHRISTIANITY  183 

ESSAY   VIII 

THE    STEPS    OF    LIFE  213 


IX 


I.    SIN    AND    SORROW 


OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 

,      -J  OF  .         .,;. 

SIN  AND  SORROW 

|LTHOUGH  the  Way  to 

Happiness  is  ever  plain 
and  open  to  all,  yet  not  all 
who  have  seen  it  succeed 
in  really  finding  it.  Like 
poor  Pliable  in  the  "  Pil- 
grim's Progress,"  they 
turn  back  when  once  they  have  fallen  into 
the  Slough  of  Despond  ;  and  it  is  they,  and 
not  those  who  have  never  tried  it,  who  give 
the  narrow  path  to  genuine  happiness  the 
poor  repute  it  has  with  so-called  realists. 
Such  deserters  are  often  highly  gifted 
and,  at  first,  earnest ;  and  they  are  by  no 
means  always  lacking  in  the  courage  need- 
ed to  seek  the  truth  and  for  its  sake  to  give 
up  the  enticing  illusions  of  life.  But  on 
the  very  threshold  of  that  better  life  which 
alone  brings  peace  stand  two  dark  figures, 
like  the  guardians  at  the  mouth  of  Hell  in 
the  "  Paradise  Lost " ;  and  before  them 
even  the  stoutest  heart  trembles,  and  they 
let  no  man  by  who  has  not  first  had  it  out 
with  them. 

What  stands  in  the  way  of  our  hap- 
piness is  a  twofold  terrible  reality  known 
to  every  one  who  has  lived  beyond  the  first 
half-unconscious  age  of  childhood — Sin 
and  Sorrow.  To  be  set  free  from  these  is 


the  true  motive  in  all  men's  strivings  after 
happiness ;  no  philosophy,  no  religion,  no 
economics,  no  politics,  that  is  not  essen- 
tially directed  to  this  end. 

Of  these  two  great  antagonists,  with 
which  every  man  has  to  engage  in  hard 
conflict,  the  first  is  Sin.  It  begins  early 
in  life,  for  the  most  part  earlier  than  sor- 
row, earlier  even  than  the  common  ex- 
pression of  "  the  innocence  of  childhood  " 
implies.  "Ye  lead  us  into  life  amain,  ye 
let  poor  man  all  sinful  grow,  and  then  aban- 
don him  to  pain  ; "  thus  Goethe  accuses 
the  "heavenly  powers,"  really  meaning, 
however,  an  inexorable  fate  which,  in  his 
view,  dominates  human  existence,  and 
against  which  neither  Promethean  revolt 
avails  nor  the  attempt  (more  common  since 
his  day)  to  deny  the  existence  of  sin  alto- 
gether. In  every  man  there  lives  a  re- 
lentlessly real  feeling  that  duty  and  sin  do 
exist,  and  that  sin  not  merely  follows  trans- 
gression, but  is  lodged  within  it  and  must 
pour  its  consequences  with  mathematical 
certainty  upon  the  head  of  the  guilty  one, 
unless  averted  by  some  means  or  other ; 
and  that  can  be  by  no  mere  philosophical 
train  of  reasoning. 

Try  (if  you  would  be  so  bold)  by  mere 
negation  to  declare  yourself  free  from  these 

4 


realities,  rooted  like  granite  in  all  human 
existence!  Notwithstanding  your  resolu- 
tion, there  is,  all  the  same,  in  every  action 
of  yours,  yes,  in  every  thought,  a  right  way, 
and  if  you  do  not  pursue  it,  then  it  is  a  sin. 
Or  rather  do  not  try  ;  it  is  a  reef  on  which 
millions  have  already  gone  to  pieces,  and  on 
which  you  will  go  to  pieces,  too.  "  Be- 
yond all  Good  and  Evil "  is  a  place  not  to 
be  found  on  earth  outside  the  mad-house, 
where  many  men,  often  highly  gifted,  are 
shut  up  to-day ;  not  merely  by  chance,  for 
the  human  spirit  sinks  into  madness  when- 
ever, in  all  earnestness,  it  seeks  to  disre- 
gard these  truths  in  its  own  life. 

I  am  quite  well  aware  that  this  does  not 
"  explain  "  the  feeling  of  duty  and  sin ;  be- 
sides, it  is  a  matter  of  indifference  to  man's 
welfare  how  this  feeling  is  to  be  explained, 
whether  as  a  superstition  handed  down 
for  many  generations,  or  as  a  belief  wholly 
in  accord  with  reason.  Even  if  it  be  a 
superstition,  the  champion  has  not  yet  been 
found  who  is  able  to  set  humanity  free 
from  a  nightmare  which  has  burdened  it 
from  the  beginning  of  time ;  the  isolated, 
weak  attempts  to  do  so  have  for  the 
most  part  fallen  out  very  unhappily 
for  those  who  undertook  them.  A  man 


who,  with  clear,  unclouded  brow,  openly 
denies  duty  and  sin,  and,  though  boldly 
believing  he  may  do  anything  he  pleases, 
has  yet  gone  through  his  whole  life  glad- 
heartedly,  with  the  certainty  of  his  inner 
conviction  unruffled  —  such  a  man  we 
should  first  like  to  see,  before  we  believe  in 
him.  And  though  such  a  man  were  to 
be  found,  he  would  stand  alone  and  would 
be  incomprehensible  to  all  other  men,  so 
differently  constituted. 

Duty  and  sin  become  wholly  intelligible 
only  when  we  recognize  a  personal,  extra- 
mundane  God  from  whose  will  this  inner 
law  proceeds  ;  while  the  so-called  "  imma- 
nence "  of  God  is  but  another  name  for 
atheism  or  pantheism.  To  be  sure,  it  would 
be  idle  to  desire  a  reasoned  explanation  of 
the  transcendental  God  ;  everything  tran- 
scendental by  its  very  nature  escapes  our 
comprehension,  and  for  this  reason  the  so- 
called  "  proofs  "  of  the  existence  of  God 
have  no  power  to  convince  the  human 
understanding.  Nor  do  they  seem  as  yet 
ever  to  have  convinced  any  one  who  did 
not  first  want  to  be.  In  so  far,  there- 
fore, atheism  has  a  certain  right  to  declare 
itself  not  convinced;  but  it  is  itself  just  as 
little  in  a  position  to  prove  that  its  own 
system  is  in  any  way  reasonable,  or  to 
6 


solve  the  doubts  which  that  system  gen- 
erates. Therefore  so  long  as  humanity 
abides,  the  matter  will  perhaps  stand  sim- 
ply at  this,  that  one  can  not  prove  there  is 
a  God,  but  just  as  little,  if  God  indeed 
exists,  can  one  remove  him  out  of  the 
account  of  his  own  life  by  a  mere  denial. 
The  decisive  question  of  all  questions  for 
every  man  (but  always  a  question)  will  be  : 
whether  he  shall  attempt  such  a  denial 
and  be  able  to  attain  the  inward  peace  he 
expects  therefrom,  or  whether  he  shall 
acknowledge  as  binding  the  categorical  de- 
mand of  the  oldest  divine  revelation,  "  I 
am  the  Lord  thy  God,  and  thou  shalt  have 
no  other  gods  before  me." 

The  willing  recognition  of  this  demand 
(which  in  its  second  half  already  compre- 
hends all  morality)  by  a  man  who  has  come 
to  full  deliberation  over  himself  and  his 
life-purpose,  —  this  it  is  that  first  brings 
him  out  of  a  thoroughly  ineffectual  revolt 
against  a  divine  order  he  can  not  change  by 
his  thoughts  alone,  on  into  the  possibility 
of  a  harmony  with  himself  and  the  sur- 
rounding world.  And  besides,  the  whole 
history  of  humanity  is  nothing  else  than 
the  gradual  unfolding  of  such  a  free  will 
of  the  nations  toward  the  will  of  God. 
Whoever  denies  this,  and  lives  up  to  his 

7 


OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 

CAI 


denial,  acts  against  his  own  welfare  and 
the  end  for  which  he  was  destined,  as  well 
as  against  the  good  of  mankind ;  and  this 
state  of  war  against  God  and  man,  as  well 
as  against  one's  own  life,  is  very  likely  the 
cause  that  calls  forth  the  feeling  of  sin. 
There  is  no  other  and  better  explanation 
for  it,  in  my  opinion. 

Moreover,  what  Evil  really  is  and  ex- 
actly what  Christ  understood  by  the  prayer 
for  deliverance  from  it  will,  as  long  as  we 
live  on  earth,  remain  just  as  obscure  to  us 
as  what  God  is.  We  only  know,  and  from 
experience  alone,  that  we  can  yield  our- 
selves into  its  power,  and  further,  that  it 
possesses  no  other  power  over  us  than  we 
ourselves  grant  it.  This  especially  comes 
to  pass  through  our  disobedience  to  what 
is  true  and  through  the  preponderance  of 
the  sensual,  animal  life  over  the  spiritual. 
Every  more  finely  organized  man  feels  this 
forthwith  through  a  gradually  increasing 
physical  discomfort  from  which  nothing 
else  than  a  turn-about  shall  free  him. 
And  likewise,  the  spirit  of  truth  in  a  man 
or  a  book,  in  a  whole  household  or  peo- 
ple, one  recognizes  as  something  beneficent, 
while  the  spirit  of  falsehood  he  feels  to  be 
something  unhealthy  and  poisonous,  like 
bad  air  in  a  room,  to  which  one  can,  to  be 
8 


sure,  accustom  oneself,  if  one  desires.  A 
man  can,  of  course,  try  to  dismiss  all  this 
matter  from  his  thoughts ;  he  has  perfect 
freedom  of  will  to  do  so.  But  whether  it 
will  let  him  alone  is  quite  another  and 
more  important  question. 

We  neither  can  nor  will,  therefore,  dis- 
pute with  those  who  assert  they  have 
never  harbored  any  feeling  of  sin ;  we 
can  not  look  into  their  souls.  We  only 
reply  that  they  would  in  that  case  find 
themselves  in  an  extreme  minority  and 
really  at  the  stage  of  evolution  of  the  ani- 
mals ;  for  these  also  have  no  feeling  of 
moral  obligation  and  therefore  no  sin,  but 
everything  is  permitted  them  that  their 
natural  impulse  demands.  If,  on  the  other 
hand,  such  men  possess  the  feeling  of  sin 
only  now  and  then  even,  still  it  must  be 
said  it  is  not  explicable  in  any  other  way 
than  from  the  standpoint  of  a  moral  order 
of  the  world  which  we  can  not  change  and 
contrary  to  which  we  may  not  behave,  nor 
even  think. 

We  turn  now  to  those  who  acknowledge 
all  this.  For  them  the  problem  is  to  find  a 
way  of  release  from  a  burden  which  is  by  far 
the  most  unendurable  ofall  earthly  burdens. 

The  first  thing  to  say  to  them  is  this : 

9 


Do  not  let  sin  get  the  least  foothold  in 
your  life ;  you  must  and  can  not  do  other- 
wise. For  what  afterward  becomes  a  crush- 
ing actuality  is  at  first,  for  the  most  part, 
merely  a  fleeting  thought,  an  arrow  from 
one  knows  not  whence,  shot  into  the  un- 
occupied soul.  And  if  it  lingers  there,  if 
it  is  not  at  once  thrust  forth  while  it  is  still 
easy,  then  there  soon  arises  an  evil  propen- 
sity, upon  which  mostly  follows,  first  the 
clouding  of  the  moral  consciousness,  and 
at  last  the  deed.  After  the  deed  comes 
often  enough  a  despair  that  hopes  for  no 
salvation  more ;  or  what  has  happened  is 
now  for  the  first  time  justified  before  one- 
self with  materialistic  philosophy:  in  either 
case  the  death  of  the  true  spiritual  life. 

But  unfortunately  this  counsel  to  "  re- 
sist the  beginnings"  is  only  a  very  theo- 
retical one,  and  they  who  have  the  bold 
faith  of  being  able  always  to  do  this  from 
a  voluntary  disposition  toward  the  good, 
and  by  their  own  strength,  will,  in  the 
course  of  their  own  life  and  in  their  obser- 
vation of  others,  be  compelled  bit  by  bit 
to  lessen  altogether  too  far  the  demands 

O 

they  make  of  human  kind.  This  is  the 
especial  weakness  of  the  noble  Kantian 
philosophy.  A  grievous  passage  through 
some  Valley  of  Humiliation,  or  an  abate- 
10 


ment  in  the  clear  vision  of  his  moral  con- 
sciousness inevitably  comes  upon  the  man 
who,  at  first,  believed  he  was  able,  with 
uplifted  head  and  without  any  help  from 
without,  to  tread  the  Path  of  Virtue  with- 
out wandering  from  the  way. 

Therefore  the  second  counsel  is  more 
important  for  man  as  he  is  actually  con- 
stituted :  Free  thyself  at  any  cost  from 
every  sin  thou  bearest,  if  thou  wouldst 
arrive  at  happiness.  This  way  passes  the 
unerring  road  ;  just  as,  in  Purgatory,  Dante 
could  enter  the  portal  of  salvation  only  by 
passing  the  grave  angel  guardian  sitting 
upon  the  diamond  threshold  with  naked 
sword.  There  is  no  other  way  to  set  your 
soul  truly  free.  Goethe,  it  is  true,  has 
tried  in  the  second  part  of  "  Faust "  to  dis- 
cover a  kind  of  natural  salvation  from  sin  ; 
and  this,  in  fad,  has  remained  the  path 
which  many,  still  to-day,  are  seeking  out : 
namely,  the  noble  enjoyment  of  nature, 
which  at  least  now  and  then  can  silence 
the  accusing  voices  within ;  with  art  and 
the  charm  of  the  beautiful,  wherein  many 
perceive  at  once  the  consummation  and 
the  expiation  of  material  man  ;  or  finally, 
action,  a  share  in  the  work  of  civilization, 
which  is  to  uplift  the  depressed  heart  and 
to  delude  itself  with  the  applause  of  the 

ii 


multitude,  at  least  for  the  moment.  But, 
alongside  all  this,  nevertheless,  sin  remains 
inexorably  standing,  a  melancholy  fact ; 
and  even  the  great  poet  was  unable  to  set 
it  aside  in  any  credible  way.  A  divine 
love  that  receives  a  man  to  its  bosom  even 
though  he  be  not  repentant,  but,  on  the 
contrary,  persists  to  the  last  moment  in 
defiantly  living  out  his  life  in  his  own  way 
— a  divine  love  of  this  sort  is  a  mere  picture 
of  the  fancy,  an  arbitrary  poetical  invention, 
against  which  even  Goethe's  Promethean 
soul  was  obliged,  for  its  own  honor,  to 
protest  with  the  last  breath  of  the  body. 

Yet  even  repentance  does  not  alone  re- 
lease from  sin,  but  there  must  be  a  trustful 
turning  of  the  soul  to  God,  whose  mighty 
arm  of  mercy  (as  Manfred  says  in  Dante's 
great  poem)  receives  all  that  turn  to  it; 
and  it  will  not  be  prevented  from  doing  so, 
even  by  an  authoritative  decree  of  a  church. 

And  in  this  regard  the  greatness  of 
the  sin  is  no  matter.  What  is  great 
and  small  in  human  sin  anyway,  weighed, 
not  according  to  human  notions  and  the 
penal  law-books,  but  in  the  eye  of  a  judge 
who  knows  all  and  metes  a  perfect  justice  ? 

Whoever  finds  within  himself  the  cour- 
age to  appeal  to  His  mercy  has  already 
received  it  in  all  essentials,  for  the  dis- 

12 


favor  of  God  consists  mainly  in  the 
"judgment  of  obduracy,"  a  judgment  which 
lets  the  offender  remain  unbroken  and 
defiant  until  his  end,  and  prevents  him 
from  calling  upon  this  mercy. 

Our  churches,  to  be  sure,  have  in  a 
measure  widely  strayed  from  this  simple 
way  of  atonement  and  affirm  a  very  much 
more  positive  manner  of  salvation  from 
sin,  either  through  outward  works,  or  at 
least  through  definite  dogmatic  conceptions 
of  reconciliation  with  God. 

In  the  first  case,  we  hold  that  all  out- 
ward works  of  penitence,  as  well  as  all 
"  good  works,"  are  valueless  unless  they 
spring  spontaneously  from  the  inner  turn- 
ing to  God.  Even  then  they  are  never 
meritorious  although  helpful  and  pacifying. 
The  essential  thing  in  "repentance"  (a 
great  matter,  whose  import,  however,  we 
have  almost  lost)  is  not  the  sorrow  of  re- 
gret, which  rather,  often  enough,  merely 
"worketh  death,"  but  on  the  one  hand, 
the  complete  turning  of  the  will  toward  a 
change  of  life,  and  on  the  other  hand,  the 
conviction  that,  for  this  purpose,  we  stand 
in  need  of  another  power  than  our  own,  a 
power  without  which  the  will  itself  often 
enough  remains  only  a  "  good  intention." 

Quite  intelligible,  therefore,  at  least  for 


the  Christian  churches  and  their  sincere 
adherents,  is  the  appeal  to  the  help  of 
Christ  as  the  Saviour  sent  into  the  world 
by  God  himself,  and  who  for  that  very 
reason  may  not  be  ignored.  But  the  op- 
pressed soul  does  not,  therefore,  need  an 
extensive  "  Christology  ";  indeed,  there  is 
really  no  Christology  that  is  trustworthy, 
but  God  alone  knows  the  nature  of  this  Sav- 
iour and  the  mystery  of  salvation  through 
him.  All  that  men  have  spoken  and  writ- 
ten about  it  for  two  centuries  now  has  been 
condemned  to  unfruitfulness  and  has  given 
real  comfort  to  no  one,  although  human 
error  in  these  matters,  if  held  in  good  faith, 
has  probably  of  itself  never  caused  any  one 
to  be  lost.  Only  by  the  practical  but  un- 
failing road  of  experience,  then,  will  you 
learn  that  a  simple  "  Lord,  help  me,"  com- 
ing from  the  very  depths  of  the  heart,  shall 
open  a  way  that,  to  all  your  philosophy,  to 
all  your  submission  to  church,  to  all  your 
severest  works  of  penitence,  had  remained 
closed  as  with  tenfold  iron  doors.  This  bar- 
ricade is  opened  for  you  by  the  one  great, 
unconditioned  word  of  the  gospel :  "  Him 
that  cometh  to  me  I  will  in  no  wise  cast 
out." 

Whether   you   are   to   confess    to   men 
besides,  and  what  reparation  you  have  to 

14 


make  to  them,  is  to  be  determined  only 
after  you  have  experienced  this  salvation, 
after  you  have  taken  the  Hand  that  lifts 
you  out  of  the  unstable  floods  of  uncer- 
tainty and  anxiety,  and  sets  you  upon  the 
firm  ground  of  faith.  Before,  it  is  quite 
to  no  purpose ;  rather,  this  is  just  the  ob- 
stacle which  keeps  far  the  most  men  from 
any  confession  of  repentance — which  has 
perhaps  to  take  place  before  a  third  person, 
on  whom  one  then  fears  to  stand,  his  life 
long,  in  spiritual  dependence.  But  very 
possibly  you  will  feel  yourself  called  to  go 
to  a  man  for  confession;  for  in  addition  to 
its  transcendental  side  Christianity  is,  after 
all,  a  human  brotherhood  also.  And  this 
will  be  especially  the  case  when  pride  is 
in  your  soul.  In  that  event  there  enters, 
perhaps,  the  psychological  necessity  of  a 
humbling  before  men  also,  not  alone  be- 
fore God ;  and  the  actual  expression  of 
forgiveness,  by  a  man  called  thereto  by 
God,  contains  for  many  men  a  quieting 
influence  that  they  can  not  find  in  a  mere 
thought-process,  real  as  it  may  be. 

If,  then,  you  know  such  a  man,  if  you 
feel  this  inner  summons,  if  you  can  resolve 
to  speak  to  him  with  entire  sincerity  as 
before  God  himself,  and  if  you  are  willing 
to  accept  his  directions  without  reserva- 

*5 


tions,  then  simply  go  quietly  to  him ;  in 
so  doing,  it  is  possible  you  are  attaining 
to  a  greater  advance  in  the  inner  life,  and 
in  shorter  time  than  otherwise.  But  if  even 
a  single  one  of  these  presuppositions  is 
wanting,  then  such  a  confession  will  profit 
you  nothing  at  all.  And  if  you  should 
make  of  it  a  merely  human  transaction,  out 
of  regard  to  an  existing  ecclesiastical  form, 
or  in  order  thereby  to  show  honor  to  an- 
other, then  you  dishonor  what  is  most  hal- 
lowed, and  bring  upon  yourself,  and  upon 
him  you  honor,  the  greatest  harm. 

And  make  up  your  mind  to  escape  now, 
while  it  is  still  time  and  while  the  sum- 
mons still  comes  to  you,  no  matter  through 
whom  or  in  what  way  ;  whether  through 
a  voice  within  or  a  voice  from  without, 
whether  by  chance  or  of  set  purpose, 
whether  through  sermon,  or  book,  or 
newspaper,  or  any  other  instrumentality. 
The  Book  of  Job  asserts  as  a  fact  of  ex- 
perience that  the  summons  comes  to  every 
one  "  twice  or  thrice  "  : 

"  Lo,  all  these  things  doth  God  work, 
Twice,  yea,  thrice  with  a  man, 
To  bring  back  his  soul  from  the  pit, 
That  he  may  be  enlightened  with  the  light  of  the 
living" 

16 


But  as  a  rule  the  summons  has  an  outward 
semblance  no  more  striking  than  that  of 
any  other  communication.  Much  more 
than  upon  its  form  and  manner  it  depends 
upon  this  :  that  it  touch  in  the  innermost 
heart  of  man  a  string  still  sensitive  to  this 
tone,  struck  from  another  key  than  one's 
ordinary  life  and  thought. 

And  so,  if  the  summons  shall  come  to 
you  once  more,  then  arouse  yourself,  but 
at  once,  where  you  are  and  as  you  are,  in 
business,  on  the  street,  in  society,  even  in 
the  theatre  or  in  any  other  place  ;  delay  for 
not  one  minute  the  resolution  to  strike 
every  sin  out  of  your  life.  Then  every- 
thing will  become  easier  and  clearer  ;  that 
gloomy  spirit  and  those  false  conceptions, 
which  are  simply  the  direcl:  consequence 
of  sin  itself,  will  leave  you,  and  a  day  will 
come  at  last  when  you  also  can  say  :  "  Now 
am  I  become,  in  God's  sight,  a  soul  that 
findeth  peace." 

II 

If  you  should  ask  men  which  of  these 
two  great  evils,  sin  and  sorrow,  they  had 
rather  see  banished  from  their  life,  the 
majority,  we  fear,  would  choose  to  see 
sorrow  banished.  But  wrongly ;  for  not 
only  is  sin  very  often  the  basal  cause  of 
c  17 


sorrow,  but  it  is  also  comparatively  easy  to 
bear  heavy  sorrow  if  no  feeling  of  guilt  is 
bound  up  with  it.  On  the  contrary,  even 
in  the  midst  of  grief  one  often  feels  a  closer 
nearness  to  God  that  beatifies  the  human 
heart  in  its  inmost  depths ;  one  feels,  too, 
the  truth  of  the  saying  that  the  spirit  of 
man  can  be  joyous  even  in  distress.  And 
so,  beyond  all  doubt,  the  greatest  of  evils 
is  sin ;  and  in  this  fact  lies,  what  is  very 
often  overlooked,  a  tremendous  equalizing 
force  in  human  conditions,  which  in  this 
respect  know  no  distinction  between  rich 
and  poor. 

On  the  other  hand,  to  be  sure,  the  rela- 
tion of  the  two  evils  to  each  other  is,  not 
rarely,  an  inverted  one :  the  first  impulse 
to  sin  comes  sometimes  from  sorrow,  the 
tormenting  anxiety  how  to  get  through 
life,  the  conviction,  in  troubled  moments 
almost  forcing  itself  upon  us,  that  one  will 
not  be  able  to  carry  through  the  hard 
struggle  for  existence  if  one  is  too  pain- 
fully scrupulous,  if  one  may  not  use  a  little 
dishonesty,  deception,  and  force,  "just  as 
everybody  else  does,  and  as  seems  unfor- 
tunately to  be  inevitable,  you  know,  in 
human  affairs."  Without  this  conviction 
many  men  would  be  upright  who  now 
think  they  can  not  be.  This  is  really  a 
18 


superstition  which  to-day  almost  seems  to 
be  more  prevalent  than  ever,  and  to  destroy 
it  should  be  one  of  the  chief  concerns  of 
the  Christianity  of  our  time.  Christianity 
was  also  much  concerned  therewith  in  the 
days  of  its  beginnings,  when  it  gave  not 
merely  the  counsel  but  the  command,  "  not 
to  be  anxious,"  giving  at  the  same  time  a 
very  positive  direction  as  to  how  the  com- 
mand might  be  carried  out :  "  Seek  ye  first 
His  kingdom  and  His  righteousness,  and 
all  these  things  shall  be  added  unto  you." 
But  this  counsel,  of  course,  presupposes 
trust  in   God ;  without    this,  it  is    of  no 
value.  An  unconquerable  anxiety  is,  there- 
fore, in  most   cases  evidence  of  a  secret 
atheism.  Among  the  most  remarkable  of 
the  many  remarkable  things  of  this   life 
is  this :  that  so  many  of  the  very  wisest 
people  voluntarily  submit  to  this  punish- 
ment, their  whole  life  through,  when  they 
could    have   things    so  much   better.  For 
God  is  faithful,  a  rock  on  which  one  may 
rely ;  this  is  the  one  thing  we  most  surely 
know  of  him,  the  one  thing  we  can  most 
easily  ourselves  experience.    But  faithful- 
ness is   in   its  nature   reciprocal,  and  our 
own  faithfulness  consists  far  less   in   any 
sort   of  acts  or    confessions    than   in   the 
resolute  shutting  out  of  all  distrust  every 


time  it  would  approach  us  in  the  manifold 
difficulties  and  injustices  of  this  life. 

To  be  sure,  complete  confidence  in 
the  possibility  of  a  release  from  sorrows 
through  trust  in  God  comes  to  be  a  cer- 
tainty only  through  experience ;  but  there 
is,  in  the  Bible  and  in  countless  later  writ- 
ings and  in  many  human  lives,  such  a 
mass  of  assurances  and  experiences  of 
trustworthy  men,  and  on  the  other  hand, 
there  are,  before  our  eyes,  so  many  obvious 
examples  of  the  impossibility  of  any  other 
release  from  sorrow,  that  we  may  fittingly 
ask :  Why  is  there  so  great  an  aversion  to 
making  this  experience  ?  Why,  when  men 
are  tormented  with  sorrow,  often  to  the 
point  of  despair,  why  do  they  not  at  least 
make  trial  of  this,  instead  of  seeking  death  ? 
The  reason,  perhaps,  is  mostly  this :  they 
do  not  want  to  be  dependent  on  God ; 
they  had  much  rather  put  dependence  on 
pitiless  men.  Indeed,  the  assurances  of 
the  Bible  may  be  appropriated  in  their 
literal,  full  meaning  only  by  the  man  who 
has  sought  no  alien  help  beside,  nor  any 
human  help  at  all  before  he  has  first  sought 
God's.  But  how  many  are  there  to-day 
who  do  that  ?  So  long  as  the  sun  of  fortune 
shines  for  them,  they  believe  in  their  "lucky 
20 


star"  with  a  kind  of  ludicrous  or  sacrile- 
gious fatalism,  and  therewith  a  secret  fear 
often  takes  them  unawares ;  for  "  happi- 
ness of  this  kind  needs  many  supports, 
while  the  happiness  of  those  at  one  with 
the  will  of  God  has  need  of  but  one."  But 
when  once  they  have  misfortune  and  no 
human  aid  to  ward  it  off,  they  go  all  to 
pieces  and  fall  into  the  manifold  "  nervous 
affections"  of  our  time,  into  sleeplessness 
and  ceaseless  unrest,  and  these  bring  them 
to  the  numberless  sanitariums,  for  the  most 
part  vainly ;  for  cc  the  sorrow  of  the  world 
worketh  death,"  and  against  that  no  nerve 
specialist  nor  hydropathy  avails. 

It  is  certain  that  there  is  a  way  of  re- 
lease from  continuous  sorrow ;  it  must  be 
just  as  certain  that  single  and  even  frequent 
sorrows  belong  to  the  necessary  events  of 
our  life.  There  can  be  no  human  life 
without  sorrows  ;  but  to  live  with  sorrows, 
yes,  with  many  sorrows,  yet  free  from  sor- 
row's burden,  that  is  the  art  of  life  toward 
which  we  are  being  trained.  It  is,  therefore, 
an  everyday  experience  that  men  who 
have  too  few  sorrows  buy  themselves 
some ;  for  riches,  which  in  the  view  of 
most  men  are  meant  to  release  one  from 
anxiety,  are  not  fitted  to  do  that ;  they 
are  "  deceitfulness,"  as  Christ  himself  calls 

21 


them,  and  his  warnings  against  them, 
which  we  are  wont  to  take  so  lightly,  are 
surely  not  there  for  merely  "  decorative 
effed." 

We  must  have  sorrows,  and  for  three 
substantial  reasons  :  in  the  first  place,  in 
order  not  to  become  arrogant  and  frivo- 
lous ;  sorrows  are  the  weight  in  the  clock, 
to  regulate  its  proper  movement ;  misfor- 
tune is  really  in  most  cases  the  only  means 
of  salvation  for  those  who  are  not  on  the 
right  way.  In  the  second  place,  to  enable 
us  to  have  fellow-feeling  with  others ; 
people  who  are  too  well  nourished  and 
free  from  customary  sorrows  easily  become 
egotists,  who  at  last  not  merely  have  com- 
passion for  pale  faces  no  longer,  but  re- 
gard them  as  a  kind  of  offence,  a  disturbing 
element  in  their  ease ;  they  may  go  so  far 
as  to  feel  downright  hatred  for  them. 
And  finally,  because  sorrows  alone  effec- 
tively teach  us  to  trust  in  God  and  seek 
his  aid ;  for  the  granting  of  prayer  and  the 
consequent  release  from  sorrow  is  the  only 
convincing  proof  of  God,  and  likewise  the 
test  of  the  truth  of  Christianity  to  which 
Christ  himself  challenges  us.  Therefore 
the  evil  days  are  good ;  without  them, 
most  men  would  never  come  at  all  to  the 
soberer  thoughts. 
22 


Furthermore,  the  deliverances  from  sor- 
row, the  triumphal  days  when  a  man  be- 
holds a  mountain-load  rolled  away,  belong 
to  undoubtedly  the  purest  moments  of 
happiness  in  life,  moments  that  God  must 
grant  to  his  own,  if  he  is  truly  merciful  to 
them.  Spurgeon,  therefore,  rightly  says, 
in  one  of  his  finest  sermons,  that  if  we 
truly  trust  God,  he  is,  in  the  beginning, 
better  than  our  fears,  then  better  than  our 
hopes,  and  finally  better  than  our  wishes. 
For  his  people,  sorrow  always  lasts  only 
so  long  as  it  still  has  a  task  to  fulfil  on 
their  behalf. 

If  one  wished  to  put  the  truth  a  little 
paradoxically,  then  one  might,  with  frank 
directness,  say  to  many  a  man  who  is  for- 
ever complaining  of  all  sorts  of  little  things, 
to  whom  much  in  the  world  is  not  right, 
neither  weather,  nor  politics,  nor  social  re- 
lations, "  You  have  too  few  cares ;  make 
yourself  some,  care  for  others  who  have 
too  many  ;  then  you  will  no  longer  have 
any  of  that  sickly,  discontented  disposition, 
or  at  least  will  no  longer  give  so  much 
heed  to  what  now  makes  you  unhappy." 
People  in  particular  who  have  a  spiritual 
calling  should  never  wish  themselves  free- 
dom from  sorrow,  for  then  they  can  never 
effectively  speak  with  others  who  have 

23 


sorrows ;  nay,  in  most  cases  they  can  not 
really  understand  them. 

And  so  we  repeat :  incessant  sorrow 
there  must  not  be  ;  from  such  there  is  a 
way  of  escape  ;  if  you  will  not  use  it,  then 
bear  your  sorrow  as  a  punishment  there- 
for. But  of  occasional  troubles  you  must 
accept  a  generous  share  with  good  grace 
and  overcome  them  through  the  power  of 
your  spirit  and  will. 

And  now  we  come  to  the  various  human 
remedies  for  sorrow. 

The  best  is  Patience  and  Courage. 
"  Whoever/'  says  Bishop  Sailer,  "  is  able 
to  submit  to  God  in  every  hour  of  dark- 
ness will  soon  see  the  morning  light  again 
arise  ;  for  his  submission  is  the  cock-crow 
that  heralds  and  greets  the  coming  day." 
And  indeed  it  is  a  fact  remarkably  true  to 
experience,  how  often  all  difficulty  vanishes 
as  soon  as  we  have  taken  a  stand  in  regard 
to  it,  as  soon  as  we  have  actually  shouldered 
it.  Our  very  best  possessions  we  really 
possess  only  when  we  were  once  in  our 
life  compelled  to  give  them  up.  Besides, 
it  is  easy  to  notice,  from  our  own  expe- 
rience, that  even  our  judgment  of  things 
that  befall  us  is  often  wrong  at  first. 
Again  and  again  we  discover  that  what 
24 


was  apparently  unpropitious  and  injurious 
has  later  revealed  itself  as  advantageous, 
and  that,  on  the  other  hand,  so-called 
lucky  events  have  turned  out  to  be  of  un- 
commonly little  use,  if  not  actually  harm- 
ful. And  so,  one  is  very  sensible  if  he 
can  suspend  his  judgment  in  times  of 
anxiety  ;  and  still  more  help  can  many  a 
time  be  gained  from  the  thought  that  all 
trouble  is  always  borne  merely  from 
moment  to  moment,  and  that  the  next 
moment  will  bring  a  change,  or  at  least 
new  strength.  Very  often  trouble  lasts, 
in  its  full  force,  no  longer  than  three  days  ; 
those  one  may  easily  undertake  to  endure. 
The  real  burden  of  unhappiness  consists 
in  the  notion  that  it  is  going  to  last  an 
unlimited  while  ;  this  is  merely  a  delusion 
of  the  fancy. 

But  there  are  still  some  minor  remedies 
besides,  or  at  least  palliatives,  and  it  is  well 
worth  the  pains  for  one  to  review  them 
quietly  and  get  a  clear  conception  of  them  ; 
for  what  is  said  in  the  second  part  of 
"  Faust "  is  only  too  true,  that  if  sorrow 
but  breathes  upon  us,  she  makes  us  blind. 

The  first  and  most  efficacious  of  these 
remedies  is  Work,  not  merely  for  its  im- 
mediate results,  but  because  it  busies  the 


mind  and  keeps  it  from  useless  brooding 
over  things  that  perhaps  never  come  at 
all ;  for  a  great  part  of  sorrow  consists 
of  unfounded  fear.  Work  gives  courage, 
and  it  gives  momentary  forgetfulness  in 
a  legitimate  way,  as  unwarranted  and  per- 
nicious "  distractions  "  and  drink  do  not. 
It  is  the  only  true,  permissible,  and 
beneficent  Lethe-draught  of  the  modern 
world. 

The  second  means,  which  can,  of  course, 
be  used  only  by  those  to  whom  God  is  a 
living  Personality  and  not  merely  an  idea, 
is  Prayer — indeed,  to  pray  to  God  first 
of  all  before  one  speaks  with  men.  Spur- 
geon  says,  perhaps  truly,  that  herein  lies 
hidden  also  the  secret  of  success  with  men 
— that  is,  the  art  of  speaking  rightly  with 
men,  through  whom  God  then  sends  help 
in  a  practical  way.  But  we  do  not  wish 
to  write  a  treatise  here  on  prayer.  Suffice 
it  to  say  that,  in  prayer,  faith  is  necessary 
on  the  one  hand,  and  on  the  other,  that  the 
man  should  turn  to  God  with  his  whole 
will,  with  all  his  spiritual  power  concen- 
trated upon  a  single  point.  The  result,  in 
any  case,  is  power ;  and,  besides  the  ex- 
perience of  more  frequent  aid,  there  follows 
the  conclusion,  entirely  logical,  that  if  God 
bestows  on  man  the  greatest  of  life's  bless- 
26 


ings,  he  will  not  refuse  him  those  minor 
ones  also,  which  serve  only  for  the  preser- 
vation of  life.  There  would  really  be  no 
sense  in  bringing  a  man  so  far  on  his  way 
as  to  begin  to  lead  an  upright  life,  and 
then  to  let  him  die  of  hunger.  The  ex- 
pression, so  often  heard,  that  there  are  no 
longer  any  miracles  in  these  days,  is  most 
certainly  untrue.  No  one  can  bind  a  living 
God  to  "  natural  laws." 

Without  doubt,  however,  it  often  hap-  o  '  '•  ' 
pens  that  one  must  wait  for  the  prayer's 
fulfilment,  must  at  times,  indeed,  stand 
knocking  for  a  long  while ;  or  the  prayer 
may  never  be  fulfilled  at  all.  But  then, 
in  the  first  case,  perhaps  even  this  waiting 
is  the  right  answer  to  the  prayer  (as,  to  be 
sure,  one  mostly  discovers  only  later) ; 
and  in  the  other  case,  you  perhaps  receive 
something  better  than  you  yourself  had 
chosen. 

A  third  means,  chiefly  availing  in  finan- 
cial anxieties,  is  Contentment,  pleasure 
in  simple  things.  From  this,  the  men  of 
our  day  have  wandered  far  ;  and,  for  many, 
an  ever-heightening  enjoyment  passes  for 
the  only  true  purpose  of  life,  and  a  certain 
measure  of  luxury  is  regarded  as  a  require- 
ment and  a  symbol  of  culture.  It  will  be 
necessary  for  men  to  return  once  more  to 

27 


simplicity  in  their  mode  of  living  and  to  a 
voluntary  renunciation  of  the  philosophy 
of  pleasure,  if  they  are  to  banish  sorrow, 
and  often  still  worse  from  their  life.  Pray- 
ing for  pleasure  nothing  avails  ;  it  is  not 
for  the  needs  of  luxury  that  God  is  to  be 
had,  but  for  daily  bread. 

In  close  relation  to  contentment  stand 
two  other  great  remedies  against  sorrow. 
The  first  is  a  wise  Frugality.  This  goes 
hand  in  hand,  indeed,  only  with  honest 
acquisition  ;  what  is  unjustly  acquired  is 
seldom  wisely  saved,  and,  according  to  a 
true  proverb,  rarely  descends  to  the  third 
heir.  In  such  cases,  therefore,  frugality  is 
of  no  use.  Frugality  can  also,  in  other 
cases,  be  actually  harmful.  Excessive  cal- 
culation, and  anxiety  extending  to  the 
smallest  minutiae  of  expenditure,  leads  to 
needless  care,  and  almost  as  many  people 
come  to  spiritual  ruin  through  this  as 
through  heedless  improvidence.  And  so, 
the  blessing  (or  curse)  that  rests  on  the 
actions  of  men  has  a  manifest  relation  to  the 
observance  of  the  moral  commandments. 
If  it  were  not  so,  it  would  be  truly  enig- 
matical how  so  many  thousands  of  honest 
men  get  through  life  without  property  or 
sure  income.  They  themselves  would  be 
least  of  all  in  a  position  to  explain  it. 
28 


There  is  one  more  remedy  against  finan- 
cial anxiety,  and  that,  strange  to  say,  is  sys- 
tematic Giving.  This  the  ancient  prophets 
of  Israel  already  knew ;  in  our  day  it  has 
lately  assumed  prominence  again,  especially 
through  George  Miiller  and  Spurgeon. 
Whether  the  amount  to  be  laid  aside  for 
this  purpose  should  be  the  tenth  part  of 
one's  income  would  seem  a  matter  of  com- 
plete indifference ;  but  a  definite  part  it 
must  be ;  and  it  should  never  be  allowed 
to  remain  a  matter  of  mere  intentions, 
which  the  natural  avarice  of  men  will 
always  find  ways  of  evading.  In  this  way 
a  man  oftentimes  acquires  his  first  inclina- 
tion toward  caring  for  his  poor  fellow-men, 
while  otherwise  they  appear  to  him  only 
too  often  as  troublesome  claimants  for 
something  that  rightly  belongs  to  himself 
alone  or  that  he  has  need  of  for  himself 
and  for  his  own.  But  when  a  man  possesses 
such  a  fund,  no  longer  belonging  to  him- 
self, then  he  looks  around  more  freely  to 
see  where  he  may  put  the  money  to  good 
use ;  then  at  times  he  even  anticipates 
the  appeal  of  the  tongue  when  he  sees 
the  mute  appeal  of  the  eye.  This  single 
habit,  universally  adopted,  would  help 
solve  the  social  question  more  than  all 
the  talking  and  scribbling  with  which  the 

29 


world    now  resounds,  for    the   most    part 
vainly. 

A  stoical  remedy  we  will  finally  name, 
because,  when  all  the  others  have  first  been 
tried,  in  most  cases  it  is  no  longer  neces- 
sary. It  consists  in  picturing  to  ourselves 
the  worst  that  could  happen.  And,  in  fact, 
this  does  afford  a  certain  consolation,  at 
least  for  him  who  is  able  to  make  use  of 
it ;  others,  on  the  contrary,  can  be  led  by 
this  path,  and  without  any  need  for  it,  to 
despair. 

Nevertheless,  all  this  does  not  always 
bring  immediate  help.  The  Spirit  of  Sor- 
row often  falls  upon  one  like  an  armed  man 
(especially  in  sleepless  nights),  and  leaves 
him  no  time  for  instant  resistance.  In 
that  case,  the  first  step  is  to  discover  the 
cause.  If  it  is  sin,  it  must  be  at  once  set 
right.  If  there  is  no  definite  cause  present, 
or  if  it  is  of  a  physical  nature,  then  with- 
stand it  by  physical  remedies,  such  as  sleep, 
fresh  air,  exercise,  or  by  work  ;  never  by 
mere  "distractions,"  for  afterward  the 
trouble  returns  with  doubled  power.  Often 
a  good  quotation  will  strengthen,  such  as : 
"  Can  a  woman  forget  her  sucking  child, 
that  she  should  not  have  compassion  on 
the  son  of  her  womb  ?  yea,  these  may  for- 


get ;  yet  will  I  not  forget  thee.  Behold, 
I  have  graven  thee  upon  the  palms  of  my 
hands." 

If  the  cause  of  sorrow  is  some  trouble 
actually  present,  and  not  one  feared  in  the 
future,  then  perhaps  the  following  thought 
will  help :  We  must  bear  what  God  lays 
upon  us  ;  and  we  must,  with  all  our  power 
of  will,  hold  fast  the  conviction  that  nothing 
can  possibly  happen  without  his  permis- 
sion and  that  all  is  measured  in  accord  with 
our  strength,  whose  actual  resources  we 
often  do  not  know  ourselves.  These  two 
thoughts,  then,  are  provisionally  our  sup- 
port ;  whoever  gives  up  this  support  is 
like  a  man  who  clings  to  a  rope  over  an 
abyss  and  lets  go  the  rope.  There  is  no 
call  to  be  overstoical ;  we  may  give  vent 
to  our  sorrow,  only  not  at  all  to  ourselves 
and  but  sparingly  to  others  ;  and  we  should 
then  take  some  action  in  accordance  with 
our  reason,  though  not  in  accordance  with 
that  alone, — nor  always  at  once,  while  it 
is  still  troubled  with  excitement.  With 
these  presuppositions,  one  can  endure 
much. 

It  is  quite  possible  that  at  times  even 
this  does  not  seem  rightly  to  avail.  In 
that  case,  these  are  the  periods  of  life  when 


the  genuine  steel  of  character  is  to  be 
formed,  that  otherwise  may  not  be  brought 
to  pass.  Then  at  least  make  the  attempt 
simply  to  hold  out  for  a  short  time  longer, — 
for  a  month,  a  week,  three  days,  or  even 
only  for  a  single  day.  Not  rarely  at  the 
end  of  such  a  term  you  are  stronger  than 
at  its  beginning,  and  frequently  experience 
shows  it  to  be  the  case  that  from  the  very 
moment  one  is  preparing  himself  for  the 
apparently  inevitable,  and  no  longer  seeks 
or  expects  any  human  aid,  at  that  very 
moment  relief  is  already  coming.  The 
suffering  has  then  just  fulfilled  its  pur- 
pose. 

In  conclusion,  only  one  thing  more: 
we  know  very  well  how  people,  in  the 
hours  of  their  heaviest  struggles  with  sor- 
row, can  lose  faith  in  every  ground  of  con- 
solation and  look  upon  such  grounds  as 
unsatisfying,  or  as  the  empty  talk  of  peo- 
ple who  have  themselves  suffered  nothing 
like.  That  may  be  true,  or  again  it  may 
not.  But,  in  case  you  think  it  is,  neverthe- 
less try  to  bear,  for  the  glory  of  God,  what 
you  will  and  can  no  longer  endure  for 
your  own  sake  or  for  the  sake  of  those 
near  to  you.  "  When  you  are  driven 
almost  to  despair,"  says  Spurgeon,  "  and 


are  tempted  to  lay  violent  hands  upon 
yourself  or  to  do  some  other  rash  and  evil 
deed,  do  nothing  of  the  kind,  but  trust 
yourself  to  your  God ;  that  will  bring  him 
more  glory  than  seraphim  and  cherubim 
can  give.  To  believe  the  promise  of  God, 
when  you  are  ill,  or  sad,  or  near  to  death — 
that  it  is  to  glorify  God."  This  "  giving 
God  the  glory,"  or  "  praising  the  Lord," 
or  "  hallowing  his  name,"  is  one  of  the 
many  expressions  of  the  Bible  which  have 
now  quite  vanished  from  our  real  compre- 
hension and  have  become  an  empty  phrase. 
To  render  glory  to  God  on  earth  and  still 
to  live  for  him  though  one  would  otherwise 
be  glad  to  dispense  with  life,  that  is  the 
highest  of  all  life's  resignations  ;  and  he  to 
whom  this  duty  is  finally  intrusted  is  not 
to  make  complaint,  but  to  be  ashamed  if  it 
come  to  one  unwilling  to  accept  it.  But  if  it 
has  come  to  a  man  who  has  something  of  the 
heroic  in  his  nature,  then  by  its  means  he 
will,  for  the  first  time,  develop  the  possi- 
bilities that  lay  dormant  within  him ;  and 
the  feeling  of  a  larger  and  surer  nearness  to 
God  will  then,  in  the  bitterest  hours  of  his 
life,  so  lift  him  above  himself  that  these  very 
hours  will  seem  to  his  after-memory  as  the 
most  beautiful — as  those,  indeed,  to  which 
he  owes  all  his  real  happiness  in  life. 

33 


OF  THE 

UN1VERSIT 

f,V  OF 


Sin  and  sorrow  cling  close  together  in 
human  life ;  therefore  they  are  also  dis- 
played here  before  the  reader  as  an  associ- 
ated hindrance  on  the  way  to  happiness. 

The  first  step,  as  a  rule,  must  be  to 
banish  sin  from  life ;  only  then  may  one 
seriously  think  of  getting  rid  of  sorrow. 
For  the  only  true  freedom  from  sorrow 
lies  not  in  a  man's  natural  disposition,  nor 
is  it  the  product  of  happy  outward  surround- 
ings of  any  sort ;  true  freedom  from  sorrow 
is  found  in  that  higher  happiness,  painfully 
won,  to  which  Job  was  led,  after  his  ear- 
lier happiness,  dependent  upon  fortuitous 
things,  had  been  done  away.  To  this  hap- 
piness, henceforth  secure,  we  all  without 
exception  should  attain  and  can  attain,  just 
as  soon  as  we  have  fought  through  the 
gates  at  which  the  guardians  Sin  and  Sor- 
row stand. 


34 


II.  "COMFORT  YE  MY  PEOPLE" 


II.   "COMFORT  YE  MY  PEOPLE" 

ANY  who  are  distressed 
over  the  manifold  evils 
of  our  time  (but  do  not 
themselves  have  to  suf- 
fer any  too  keenly  under 
them)  comfort  themselves 
and  others  in  the  end  with 

a  verse  from  one  of  the  hymns  of  Paul 

Gerhardt : 

"The  upper  hand   God  holdeth,  and  maketh   all 
things  well" 

I  do  not  know  whether  the  poet  put  so 
strong  a  stress  upon  the  words  "  all  things  " 
as  we  are  wont  to  do,  but  thus  much  I  cer- 
tainly do  know,  that  Christianity  shows 
scant  favor  to  an  optimism  of  this  sort ; 
all  things  will  not  be  well  in  the  end  in 
spite  of  human  folly  and  baseness ;  but, 
until  the  consummation  of  all  things  hu- 
man, good  and  evil,  justice  and  injustice, 
will  continue  to  exist  side  by  side  as  Jesus, 
in  the  parable  of  the  wheat  and  the  tares, 
has  clearly  said  once  for  all. 

No,  the  idealism  of  Christianity  is  some- 
thing quite  other  than  a  shallow  optimism  ; 
it  is  much  rather  a  strong  faith  that  every- 
thing genuinely  good,  however  slight  com- 
pared to  the  tremendous  power  and  might 

37 


of  the  forces  arrayed  against  it,  never  can 
be  crushed  by  them,  but  ever  maintains 
itself  victorious  against  its  foes.  That  is 
the  comfort  to  be  given  its  followers,  a 
comfort  that  will  take  from  them  the  fear 
of  losing  poise  in  the  midst  of  the  merciless 
actualities  of  daily  experience ;  and  that  is 
the  real  meaning  of  many  a  Bible  word  too 
often  explained  in  the  sense  of  striving 
after  earthly  power  and  splendor;  and 
that,  too,  is  the  meaning  of  some  of  the 
finest  and  most  familiar  hymns  from  the 
fighting  days  of  the  Reformation,  such  as 
that  hymn  of  Luther,  "  A  mighty  fortress 
is  our  God,  a  bulwark  never-failing." 

On  the  other  hand,  the  power  of  what 
Christianity  calls  "  the  world"  is  very  great, 
and  all  the  elements  that  make  up  that 
power,  from  the  lofty  pretension  of  some 
distinguished  atheistic  philosophy  all  the 
way  down  to  the  basest  instinct  of  the  most 
brutal  selfishness,  form  an  extremely  close 
alliance.  And  the  human  heart,  now  over- 
daring,  now  overtimid,  is  so  uncertain  that 
even  into  the  life  of  those  who  work  most 
effectively  for  the  good,  come  hours  when 
they  despair,  not  of  their  task  only,  but 
even  of  their  whole  manner  of  thinking,  a 
despair  that  once  and  again  God  must  dis- 
pel with  a  "  Be  not  afraid,  but  speak." 

38 


If  we  look  upon  life  from  God's  stand- 
point, instead  of  our  own  as  we  had  rather 
do,  we  see  it  is  not  a  matter  of  purely  and 
simply  making  his  people  happy.  No, 
first  of  all  they  are  to  be  made  fearless,  for 
all  right  living  is  a  life  of  battling,  not  of 
unruffled  peace ;  but  of  battling  without 
fear,  of  warring  in  a  good  cause  and  under 
sure  guidance  with  that  heroism  which  is 
the  highest  of  all  human  qualities  and  the 
best  of  all  earthly  joys. 

This  is  that  never-ending  conflict  be- 
tween good  and  evil  which  every  single 
human  being  must  fight  out  in  his  own 
life,  although  the  final  issue  is  reached 
only  at  the  end  of  all  things  and  in  a 
manner  to  us  unknown.  "  On  the  ad- 
vance post  of  a  man's  individual  experience 
the  question  is  the  same  as  in  the  great 
battle  of  the  hosts,  namely  this :  whether 
a  faith  that  is  anchored  in  God  is  not  the 
highest  of  moral  forces,  able  to  overcome 
the  ever-present  power  of  evil,  especially  the 
fundamental  sin  of  self-seeking ;  for  if  the 
victory  is  gained  at  the  advance  post,  it 
may  be  gained  all  along  the  line."  Per- 
haps this  is  truer  than  we  know,  or  ever 
experience  on  earth.  That  there  is  no 
higher  power  in  the  world  than  comes 
from  association  with  God,  every  single 

39 


human  life  must  by  trial  discover.  But 
for  that  very  reason  such  association  must 
be  sought  of  one's  own  free  will,  and  of 
one's  own  free  will  always  clung  to ;  and 
that  makes  the  problem  of  life. 

In  order  to  gain,  in  this  warfare,  a  spirit 
of  joy  quite  different  from  the  moroseness 
and  half-despair  of  many  Christians,  the 
means  closest  at  hand  is  this  :  to  try  to 
battle,  not  according  to  our  own  ideas,  but, 
as  in  military  service,  punctiliously  as 
commanded.  Such  means,  however,  is 
external ;  there  is  an  inner  basis  for  the 
right  spirit  of  joy,  without  which  that  joy 
cannot  be  enduring,  and  that  inner  basis  is 
the  abiding  of  God  in  the  heart.  When 
all  opposition  to  God  disappears,  then  ap- 
pears the  real  joy  of  living  and  the  great 
consolation  he  gives  on  earth.  This  peace 
with  God,  which  in  time  may  even  grow, 
as  it  were,  into  an  enduring  and  genuine 
friendship,  the  human  soul  must  experi- 
ence, else  it  shall  not  know  what  inward 
happiness  is.  And  outward  happiness  is 
only  the  easy  sequence  of  the  inward  ;  God 
gladly  does  nothing  but  good  to  men  as 

o    -  -o 

soon  as  he  finds  it  possible. 

Here,  also,   lies  the  real   cause  of  the 
philosophical  atheism  that  makes  up  the 
religion  of  many  excellent   people,  who 
40 


suppose  they  can  not  think  otherwise, 
though  they  would  gladly  like  to.  A 
man's  simple  logic  will  tell  him  that  it  is 
not  consistent  to  say  one  believes  in  God, 
and  yet  not  allow  God  to  dwell  in  him  and 
rule  him  absolutely ;  and  it  is  a  noble  trait 
of  many  doubters  that  they  do  not  dare  to 
serve  God  with  mere  phrases,  but  they 
see  that  if  once  he  should  be  taken  up 
into  the  account  of  life,  he  would  be  a  "  con- 
suming fire"  for  much  that  exists  in  their 
lives,  for  much  that  they  would  be  obliged 
to  give  up,  but  do  not  want  to  give  up. 
Faith  is  a  matter,  not  of  the  reason,  but 
of  the  human  will ;  and  the  difficulty  lies  in 
just  this  resolution  to  serve  God,  with  all 
its  consequences — a  resolution  the  man 
himself  must  make,  for  no  divine  mercy 
can  wholly  take  its  place. 

The  principal  things  a  man  must  sur- 
render, if  God  is  to  be  able  to  dwell  in 
him,  are  pleasure,  riches,  glory,  and  reliance 
upon  men.  On  the  other  hand,  when  this 
renunciation  has  once  been  made,  more 
and  more  there  disappear  within  him,  of 
themselves,  fear,  anger,  unrest,  and  the 
tormenting  feeling  of  weakness,  all  of  them 
the  sure  inheritance  and  distinguishing 
mark  of  the  godless.  This  is  the  road, 
and  they  who  think  they  can  squeeze 

41 


around  this  sharp  corner  with  a  few  philo- 
sophical considerations,  or  with  an  occa- 
sional cry  of  "  Lord,  Lord,"  will  likely  be 
the  most  deceived  at  last. 

Fear  is  perhaps  the  most  distressing, 
the  most  unworthy,  yet  the  most  unavoid- 
able of  all  human  feelings  ;  for  life  is  a 
battle,  and  the  fear  that  naturally  arises  in 
the  presence  of  battle  no  man  can  banish ; 
he  can  but  subdue  it  by  uplifting  his  point 
of  view.  Whether  this  can  be  done  through 
the  ancient  Stoic  or  the  modern  Kantian 
philosophy,  we  will  leave  to  one  side ;  I 
have  no  intention  of  making  any  one  dis- 
satisfied with  these  paths.  But  I  do  wish 
to  say  that  there  is  a  surer  and  shorter 
path,  requiring  less  education  and  strength 
of  character,  and  open,  not  merely  to  an 
aristocracy  of  philosophical  culture,  but  to 
every  one.  If  this  had  not  been  so,  if 
Christianity  had  not  lifted  the  poor  and 
the  humble  up  out  of  the  dust,  a  "gentry 
morality  "  would  long  ago  have  come  into 
exclusive  mastery  in  the  world,  as  it  was  in 
a  fair  way  of  doing  at  the  time  Christianity 
was  born. 

In  our  day  there  are  two  common  con- 
ceptions of  Christianity,  both  of  them 
overpassing  the  mark  :  one  of  them  makes 
of  it  a  sentimental  lamblike  bliss  that 
42 


finds  its  pleasurable  sensations  solely  "  in 
Christ "  ;  the  other  considers  it  a  fearful 
vale  of  tears,  an  unending  succession  of 
trials  and  sorrows.  But  Christianity  is  not 
so ;  its  path  is  really  much  easier  than  any 
other;  for  it  not  only  demands,  it  also 
creates,  brave  people  —  brave  people  who, 
free  from  complaining,  free  from  overmuch 
seeking  of  even  rightful  pleasures,  free 
from  any  cowardly  flight  from  the  world, 
in  the  very  midst  of  the  world  hold  up  un- 
shaken the  banner  of  righteousness  and 
never  despair  of  its  victory. 

This  is  the  spirit  that  we  most  need  to- 
day ;  and  this  is  the  sure  mark  of  a  genuine 
Christian.  If  we  will,  we  can  be  wholly 
without  fear,  not  only  before  the  forces  of 
nature,  which  all  stand  in  God's  higher 
power,  but  also  before  the  cares  of  daily 
life,  and  before  men,  who  may  do  nothing 
hostile  without  God's  permission.  Firmly 
to  trust  in  God  in  all  he  does  or  allows, 
even  if  one  is  ill,  or  troubled,  or  almost  in 
despair  of  any  good  outcome  of  a  matter, 
that  it  is  to  serve  God ;  and  in  comparison 
with  this,  all  your  other  church  "  services  " 
possess  a  distinctly  subordinate  worth. 
And  so  Luther,  too,  himself  endowed  with 
this  bravery  in  high  degree,  says  thus  : 
"  The  reason  knows  no  means  of  making 

43 


the  heart  contented  and  trustful,  in  those 
times  of  need  when  all  the  good  things  the 
world  can  give  shall  fail.  But  when  Christ 
comes,  the  outward  adversities,  indeed, 
he  lets  remain,  but  the  personality  he 
strengthens ;  he  makes  the  weak  heart 
unterrified,  and  the  trembling  heart  he 
makes  bold ;  and  he  turns  the  restless  con- 
science into  one  that  is  peaceful  and  still. 
And,  therefore,  such  a  man  is  comforted, 
courageous,  and  joyous  in  those  very 
matters  in  which  all  the  world  else  stands 
terrified  ;  that  is,  in  death,  in  terror  for  sin, 
and  in  all  the  times  of  need  when  the  world 
can  no  longer  help  with  its  good  things 
and  its  consolations.  Then  there  will  be 
a  real  and  lasting  peace,  ever  enduring  and 
invincible  so  long  as  the  heart  shall  hold  to 
Christ." 

Then  add  to  this  that  God  is  faithful 
and  lets  no  one  be  tried  beyond  his 
strength ;  yes,  even  before  the  greatest 
of  physical  and  moral  dangers  he  often 
holds  his  hands  over  our  eyes,  so  that  we 
see  them  only  when  past. 

To  be  sure,  all  this  is  inconceivable  to 
those  who  have  not  themselves  experienced 
in  evil  days  that  even  in  misfortune's 
blackest  hour  a  calm,  bright,  yes,  even 
blithe  spirit  can  yet  abide  deep  within  the 

44 


heart  inclined  to  God  ;  and  men  of  such  ex- 
perience, therefore,  often  endure  incredible 
things,  and  then,  at  the  slightest  gleam  of 
the  sun,  quickly  again  lift  themselves  up 
anew,  bodily  and  spiritually  strengthened 
from  within ;  while  other  men  are  sub- 
merged in  the  waters. 

It  can  not  be  denied,  however,  that  we 
learn  a  right  courage  only  by  degrees  and 
in  days  of  sorrow ;  and  it  is  generally 
only  through  such  days  that  we  attain  to 
the  right  conception  of  life  and  grow  into  a 
larger  mould.  So  true  is  this  that  perhaps 
no  human  being  of  any  real  worth  has  ever 
yet  gone  through  life  without  many  sor- 
rows, sorrows  that  the  Scriptures  often  and 
quite  rightly  compare  to  a  refining  fire  that 
can  be  made  thoroughly  hot  only  when 
there  is  much  precious  metal  present ;  but 
then  it  brings  all  the  gold  within  a  man  to 
light.  He  who  is  not  willing  to  suffer  re- 
nounces the  greatest  gifts  of  God,  and  rests 
satisfied  with  smaller  things,  needlessly  :  for 
even  in  the  greatest  trouble  he  has  no  need 
to  fear ;  so  long  as  he  does  fear,  there  is  still 
within  him  something  wrong  that  must  out. 

With  fear,  anger  also  disappears ;  and 
anger  in  most  cases  is  only  fear  in  disguise. 
The  angry  are  not  courageous,  they  are 
afraid  ;  you  may  nearly  always  count  upon 

45 


that  with  entire  certainty.  For  example,  the 
restless  zealots  and  agitators  who  think 
their  mission  is  to  save  Christianity  from 
its  death-bed  through  the  might  of  their 
zeal  and  hate — such  "  wrathful  saints  "  are 
but  a  kindred  variety  with  those  timid, 
sweetish  people  who  are  forever  accom- 
modating themselves  to  things,  particularly 
to  things  that  are  grand  and  aristocratic  ; 
for  the  demeanor  of  both  these  classes 
springs  from  the  one  same  source,  their 
fear. 

But  what  most  distresses  men,  often 
even  those  who  are  well  advanced  on  the 
road  of  the  Christian  life,  is  the  feeling  of 
a  constantly  recurring  weakness  such  as  we 
know  from  the  epistles  of  the  bravest  of 
all  the  apostles,  and  such  as  each  one  of  us 
indeed  knows  from  his  own  experience ; 
with  this  almost  universal  singularity,  that 
such  spells  of  weakness  are  often  wont  to 
come  on  when  quite  unlooked  for,  and 
sometimes  just  after  the  best  days  of  the 
inner  life  ;  and  then  they  can  bow  down 
the  soul  to  a  genuine  despair. 

As  to  this,  the  first  thing  to  say,  for  the 
comfort  of  those  thus  bowed  down,  is  that 
whatever  is  strong  and  powerful  in  the 
world  always  bears  within  it  I  know  not 
what  of  rough  and  undivine.  This  we 


may  ourselves  observe  in  the  case  of  men 
of  exuberant  force  ;  involuntarily,  we  never 
have,  concerning  them,  the  feeling  that 
they  especially  please  God.  Christianity, 
we  may  be  sure,  is  in  no  way  planned  upon 
the  model  of  such  giants  and  demi-gods. 

Besides,  it  is  not  hard  to  perceive  the 
educative  purpose  in  this  feeling  of  weak- 
ness. Pride  and  its  sister  vanity  can  be  torn 
out,  root  and  branch,  only  after  a  long- 
unbroken  succession  of  hard  buffetings 
has  issued  in  a  deep  and  lasting  humility. 
Through  this  purgatory,  from  end  to  end, 
the  proud  and  the  vain  must  pass  at  some 
time  in  their  lives,  if  anything  is  to  be 
made  of  them.  For  "  though  the  Lord 
be  high,  yet  hath  he  respect  unto  the 
lowly  ;  but  the  proud  he  knoweth  afar 
off;"  to  the  proud  he  assuredly  never 
comes  nigh.  If,  then,  this  sense  of  weak- 
ness is  concerned  with  spiritual  growth 
itself,  there  is  surely  no  reason  that  we 
should  be  disheartened.  Rather,  it  is  a  con- 
solation, in  such  inner  doubts  over  the 
weakness  of  our  faith,  that  when  the 
Galatians  had  slipped  back  into  an  unspirit- 
ual  and  petty  conception  of  religion,  the 
Apostle  Paul  could,  nevertheless,  assure 
them,  "  Ye  are  all  the  children  of  God  by 
faith  in  Christ  Jesus."  So  long  as  one's 

47 


faith  has  not  entirely  ceased,  this  time  of 
weakness  is  only  a  transient  phase,  and  often 
bears  more  fruit  than  more  resplendent  days 
do.  And  finally,  the  weakness  may  actually 
become  a  source  of  strength  ;  the  feeling  of 
one's  own  power,  flattering  as  it  may  be  to 
one's  pride,  is  rather  a  hindrance  than  a 
furtherance  in  the  path  of  true  inner  prog- 
ress, and  the  most  courageous  men  are  not 
they  who  have  the  greatest  confidence  in 
themselves,  but  they  who  have  sure  re- 
course to  a  power  that  far  transcends  all 
powers. 

When  once  this  inward  courage  finds 
place  in  a  well-tried  man,  then  an  un- 
assailable peace  and  joy,  as  the  Scriptures 
promise,  enter  into  the  soul  till  now  often 
tossed  by  the  waves  of  anguish  and  at 
times  indeed  entirely  bereft  of  hope.  But 
henceforth  it  "  shall  dwell  in  a  peaceable 
habitation,  and  in  sure  dwellings,  and  in 
quiet  resting  places." 

A  good  life,  quite  purged  of  dross,  is 
surely  the  highest  of  all  things  attainable; 
yet,  to  those  who  are  "  comforted,"  it  is 
just  this  that  springs  from  an  existence 
full,  indeed,  of  ever-changing  joys  and 
sorrows,  but  where  no  joy  estranges  one 
from  God  and  no  sorrow  any  longer 
breeds  impatience,  for  both  joy  and  sor- 


row  are  received  from  the  same  hand, 
as  are  the  sunshine  and  the  rain ;  and 
thankfully,  for  both  are  inseparable  ele- 
ments in  life.  And  their  lives  henceforth 
bear  blessing  to  others. 

But,  as  far  as  compatible  with  the  true 
well-being  of  a  man  guided  by  God,  his 
outward  happiness  also  is  far  higher,  and 
stands  upon  a  surer  basis  than  is  possible 
in  any  other  conception  of  life.  Yes,  for 
such  a  man  all  things  again  and  again  work 
together  for  good,  even  when  he  has  suf- 
fered seeming  failure. 

Such  are  the  asseverations  of  the  Bible ; 
and  are  we  to  think  that  they  were  meant 
only  for  the  human  beings  of  an  age  long 
vanished  ?  Or  may  we  also  apply  them  to 
our  own  use  still  to-day  ?  Surely  we  may, 
if  the  God  of  that  day  is  still  the  God 
of  this  ;  and  that  is  but  a  matter  of  test. 

And  we  may  hope  it  will,  more  com- 
monly than  hitherto,  be  put  to  the  test 
again,  when  all  other  attempts  to  regain 
a  calm  contentment  and  a  cheerful,  healthy 
spirit  of  labor  have  suffered  wreck,  and 
when  a  nervous  humanity  longs  for  real 
tranquillity  again,  and  craves  some  better 
bulwark  against  the  increasing  weariness 
of  existence  than  a  merely  materialistic 
conception  of  life  affords.  Then  will  reli- 
E  49 


gion — and  without  any  external  com- 
pelling Authority,  which  can  never  again 
in  any  manner  be  reestablished — then 
will  religion  regain  anew  its  place  in  the 
life  of  the  nations ;  whereas,  now,  it  has 
often  become  nothing  but  a  pleasant  play 
upon  the  feelings  of  leisurely  or  (in  a 
worldly  sense)  happy  people,  while  to 
such  as  really  need  it  to  deliver  them 
in  distress  and  sorrow,  it  is,  through 
prejudice,  closed. 

Many  of  these  latter,  however,  and  per- 
haps at  no  very  distant  day,  will  come 
to  these  old  water-springs,  now  all  but 
choked  with  rubbish ;  though  such  an 
idea  is  far  enough  from  their  thoughts  as 
yet.  But,  wheresoever  they  may  have 
tried,  nowhere  else  can  they  still  their 
thirst  for  a  tranquil  philosophy  of  life. 
For  what  the  old  chronicler  said  of 
Israel  is  true  to-day :  "  The  days  will 
arise  when  there  shall  be  no  true  God, 
no  law,  and  no  priest  to  show  the  way ; 
and  in  those  times  there  shall  be  no  peace 
to  him  that  goes  out,  nor  to  him  that 
comes  in  ;  for  there  will  be  great  vexa- 
tions upon  all  the  inhabitants  of  the 
earth ;  nation  will  break  nation,  and  city 
city,  and  God  will  vex  them  with  all 
adversity." 

5° 


But  as  for  you,  you  who  find  yourself 
upon  the  sure  path  of  salvation  and  peace, 
"  be  comforted,  be  strong,  let  not  your 
hands  be  slack :  for  your  work  shall  be 
rewarded." 


III.    ON   THE    KNOWLEDGE    OF 

MEN 


III.   ON   THE    KNOWLEDGE   OF 

MEN 

ERHAPS  no  one  has  ever 
seriously  doubted  that  the 
ability  to  know  and  to  pass 
an  accurate  judgment  on 
men  closely  concerns  our 
practical  life  ;  but  whether 
a  knowledge  of  human  na- 
ture brings  much  happiness  is  a  question  on 
which  opinions  have  always  differed.  While 
some  declare  that  we  really  love  men  only  so 
longas  we  do  not  know  them,  others  (like  the 
duke  in  Goethe's  "  Tasso  ")  believe  that  it 
is  only  so  long  as  we  do  not  know  men 
that  we  stand  in  fear  of  them  ;  yet  Goethe 
himself  seems  partly  to  retreat  from  this 
conception  in  another  expression  of  his, 
where  he  says  that  while  nothing  is  more 
interesting,  indeed,  than  to  learn  to  know 
men,  yet  one  must  take  care  not  to  know 
oneself. 

For  our  part,  we  believe  at  the  outset 
that  all  knowledge  of  human  nature,  even 
one's  own,  can  be  but  superficial,  and  that 
the  real  depths  of  the  soul,  and  especially  the 
limits  of  its  possibilities  for  good  and  evil, 
God  alone  can  fully  know.  But  besides 
this,  strange  as  it  may  sound  at  first,  the 

55 


knowledge  of  men  rests  upon  a  basis  of 
pessimism  joined  with  a  considerable  de- 
gree of  love  for  human  kind.  If  any  one 
looks  upon  humanity  as  something  great 
and  superior  (not  so  much  in  promise  as 
in  actual  performance),  he  will,  if  he  have 
some  measure  of  wisdom,  find  himself  in 
the  end  disillusioned  by  his  life  experi- 
ences. On  the  other  hand,  it  is  just  as 
much  a  matter  of  experience,  with  those 
who  have  known  mankind  most  perfectly, 
that  they  (Christ  himself  at  the  head)  have 
always  been  friends  to  humanity ;  for 
though  they  do  not  look  upon  man  as 
quite  free  and  nobly  born,  yet  they  believe 
him  destined  to  freedom  and  nobility  of 
life.  This  gives  them  their  power  to  love 
him,  in  spite  of  his  faults  ;  yes,  we  may  go 
so  far  as  to  say,  on  account  of  his  faults, 
just  for  the  reason  that  love,  in  this  world 
at  least,  feels  within  it  an  impelling  neces- 
sity to  pity,  to  save,  to  do  good. 

To  understand  men,  therefore,  we  must 
first  make  sure  that  we  love  them,  and  we 
must  be,  to  a  very  considerable  degree, 
independent  of  them  so  far  as  our  neces- 
sities go  ;  for  there  must  be  as  great 
an  absence  of  self-interest  as  possible  on 
our  part.  Whoever  desires  to  get  much 
out  of  men  for  his  own  advantage  will  al- 

56 


ways  be  blinded  by  his  interests,  and  who- 
ever finds  men  necessary  to  himself  will 
always  fear  them.  But  the  man  who 
wishes  to  do  something  for  them  rather 
than  receive  something  from  them,  can 
alone  really  learn  to  know  what  they  are, 
and  can  tolerate  that  knowledge,  even  in 
its  worst  features,  without  hating  men  ; 
every  one  else,  who  is  not  a  weakling,  easily 
falls  into  such  a  hatred  of  human  kind. 
A  thorough  judge  of  men,  without  love, 
would  in  fact  be  intolerable ;  the  aversion 
against  such  persons,  who  assert  they 
are  judges  of  men  but  who  are  at 
the  same  time  haters  of  men,  is  a  very 
natural  one,  for  it  is  based  on  a  law  of  self- 
defence.  And  so,  you  are  not  to  use  your 
knowledge  of  human  nature  as  something 
on  which  to  construe!:  the  edifice  of  your 
own  happiness ;  but  it  is  only  in  order 
that  you  may  be  the  better  able  to  further 
the  happiness  of  others  that  you  are  to 
desire  to  learn  how  rightly  to  judge  them. 
If  you  have  any  other  purpose,  you  will 
never  come  to  any  considerable  attainments 
in  this  art. 

The  first  step  in  the  knowledge  of 
human  nature,  so  far  as  it  is  at  all  attain- 
able, is  (quite  contrary  to  Goethe's  view) 

57 


self-knowledge  and  self-improvement ;  the 
second  step  is  the  resolve  to  learn  to  know 
men  for  their  sake  and  not  one's  own, 
But  even  so,  we  are  not  to  expect  a  per- 
fect knowledge  of  so  complicated  a  being 
as  man ;  he  does  not  even  succeed  in  un- 
derstanding himself,  or  at  the  best  gets  only 
a  partial  insight  late  in  life  ;  and  then, 
too,  no  one  individual  is  quite  like  another. 
Rather,  we  must  content  ourselves  with  a 
certain  number  of  the  results  of  experience; 
some  of  these  we  will  try,  later  on,  to  set 
before  the  reader. 

The  real  secret  of  knowing  human  nature 
lies  in  possessing  a  pure  heart  innocent  of 
self-conceit ;  such  people  gradually  acquire 
a  keenness  of  vision  that  pierces  all  the 
outer  wrappings.  The  difficulty  of  under- 
standing men  does  not  spring  from  the 
subtleties  of  a  science  of  "  psychology,"  but 
only  from  the  difficulty  of  forgetting  one's 
own  self.  We  do  not  get  to  know  men 
from  whom  we  have  something  to  hope  or 
to  fear. 

Even  the  prophetic  gift  is  nothing  else 
than  a  direct,  intense  insight  into  human 
affairs, — their  causes  and  effects.  Such 
power  resides  in  every  man  who  in  large 
measure  has  set  himself  free  from  himself. 

58 


But  self-seeking  is  like  a  veil  of  mist  to 
hinder  this  power  of  vision,  which  would 
otherwise  be  present. 

An  intercourse  with  men  that  rests 
upon  a  correct  judgment  of  them  is  there- 
fore learned,  not  so  much  by  frequent  as- 
sociation with  the  men  themselves  (as 
many  believe),  as  through  fellowship  with 
God.  If  we  have  this,  then  for  the  first 
time  we  begin  to  look  upon  men,  both 
the  good  and  the  evil,  more  with  the  just 
eyes  of  God  ;  while,  without  trust  in  Him, 
we  must  always  rely  more  or  less  on  men 
and  so  suffer  the  disillusionments  that  will 
always  follow. 

In  men,  especially  of  the  better  sort, 
there  is  furthermore  a  necessity  that  they 
shall  worship  something.  Those  who  are 
not  able  to  worship  anything  transcenden- 
tal throw  a  halo  of  fancy  about  certain 
men,  and  in  this  self-deception  not  only 
lose  all  ability  really  to  understand  men, 
but  also  work  harm  to  those  they  rever- 
ence— if  these  are  yet  living  and  are  them- 
selves poor  judges  of  men.  Wherever 
belief  in  God  is  lacking,  hero-worship, 
with  all  its  detriments  to  the  inner  and 
outer  freedom  of  humanity,  is  unavoid- 
able. 

Every  one   can   test   this   for  himself. 

59 


Whenever  he  finds  himself  fully  at  peace 
with  God,  he  at  once  becomes  more  in- 
different toward  men  in  that  very  par- 
ticular in  which  men  are  ordinarily  most 
valued ;  for  he  no  longer  cares  for  them 
for  the  sake  of  gaining  some  advantage. 
Indeed,  if  the  desire  of  conferring  advan- 
tage upon  them  did  not  remain,  he  feels 
that  he  could  easily  do  without  them  alto- 
gether. For  this  reason  all  ancient  and 
mediaeval  monachism,  as  well  as  all  mod- 
ern pessimism,  are  always  somewhat  sus- 
picious in  motive ;  for  back  of  them  lurks, 
for  the  most  part,  either  chagrin  at  not  re- 
ceiving, or  disinclination  to  give.  Others, 
too,  feel  that  this  is  so  and  are  therefore, 
on  the  whole,  none  too  well  disposed  to 
men  who  thus  hold  aloof. 

For  there  is  nothing  that  men  have  a 
more  instinctive  discernment  and  a  greater 
aversion  for  than  for  self-seeking.  Even 
the  simplest,  even  little  children,  yes,  even 
animals,  quickly  find  the  selfish  out,  in 
spite  of  all  the  pretence  with  which  they 
surround  themselves.  Whoever  would  ac- 
quire a  strong  influence  over  men  must 
give  up  thoughts  of  self-advantage.  That 
is  the  surest  way.  For  this  reason  chil- 
dren often  like  grandparents  more  than 
parents,  because  they  feel  that  in  their 
60 


love  is  less  of  self;  the  parents  are  too 
much  wrapped  up  in  their  own  concerns. 
Even  the  worst  pessimists  seek  love,  and 
no  egotist  is  earnest  at  bottom  in  his  praise 
of  egotism.  But  they  despair  of  men's 
ability  to  be  other  than  selfish,  and  they 
may  be  taught  otherwise  only  by  repeated 
deeds  ;  the  mere  phrases  of  love  have  long 
been  familiar  to  them,  and  they  estimate 
them  at  about  their  correct  value.  It 
does  no  good,  therefore,  to  speak  to  them 
much  of  love;  that  will  only  be  misunder- 
stood. At  the  most,  speak  of  friendliness 
and  public  benevolence ;  it  seems  to  be 
less,  yet  is  really  more. 

This  spirit,  then,  is  absolutely  neces- 
sary if  you  would  live  in  the  world  with- 
out disgust  at  it;  therefore  acquire  this 
spirit  at  any  cost. 

To  understand  the  nature  of  any  indi- 
vidual it  is  important  to  know  his  deriva- 
tion. Women  in  especial  follow,  almost 
without  exception,  the  character  of  their 
family,  sons  as  a  rule  that  of  the  mother 
or  the  mother's  father,  daughters  oftener 
the  paternal  side.  The  proverb  that  "the 
apple  falls  not  far  from  its  stem  "  indicates, 
therefore,  a  strong  presumption.  Only,  we 
often  do  not  know  the  derivation  suffi- 

61 


ciently  well,  and  besides,  with  God's  mercy, 
a  man  can  even  break  away  from  a  bad 
ancestry.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  there  are 
no  "  hereditary  encumbrances "  that  can 
not  be  shaken  off  by  God's  mercy  and 
man's  will.  The  assumption  of  such  an  un- 
alterable fate  is  one  of  the  greatest  sacrileges 
a  man  can  make  himself  guilty  of.  On 
the  other  hand,  in  the  same  limited  sense, 
a  certain  aristocratic  tendency  is  warranted. 
Noteworthy  individual  characteristics,  such 
as  courage,  proper  self-confidence,  a  natural 
fearlessness  of  men,  fineness  of  taste  in  all 
the  matters  of  life,  do  not  develop,  as  a 
rule,  in  the  first  generation  after  breaking 
the  yoke  of  slavery  and  oppression ;  for 
these  are  largely  transmitted  qualities.  For 
this  reason  the  great  pioneers  of  political 
and  spiritual  freedom  rarely  spring  from 
the  lowest  stratum  of  the  people,  but 
from  a  middle  stratum  already  trained 
in  these  things,  or  even,  often  enough, 
from  aristocracy  itself.  It  is,  therefore,  a 
great  misfortune,  almost  a  transgression 
against  one's  posterity,  when  a  highly 
cultured  man  marries  below  his  plane  of 
culture ;  for  thus  he  takes  a  step  back 
again. 

In  this  connection,  there  is  due  to  one- 
self and  to   others  a  certain   right  which 
62 


parents  and  teachers  often  forget.  No 
one  can  easily  change  his  whole  natural 
disposition ;  one  can  much  more  easily 
bring  that  disposition  to  a  higher  per- 
fection in  its  own  kind.  That  is  to  say, 
the  phlegmatic  man  can  attain  to  the  noble 
calm  of  wisdom,  the  sanguine  man  to  a 
self-sacrificing  activity  for  others,  the  chol- 
eric man  to  a  strong  championship  for 
whatever  is  great.  A  false  estimate  of 
this  natural  temperament,  or  attempts  to 
break  it,  usually  lead  to  deplorable  half- 
results,  where  something  complete  might 
have  been  attained. 

We  rightly  learn  to  understand  people 
only  in  their  activities,  the  men  at  their 
work,  the  women  in  their  house  affairs ; 
best  in  their  difficulties  and  sorrows,  least 
in  social  intercourse,  especially  at  hotels 
and  summer  resorts.  The  acquaintances 
made  there  often  turn  out  disappointing 
afterward.  It  is,  generally  speaking,  an 
unwholesome  feature  of  human  intercourse 
nowadays.  People  become  acquainted  with 
one  another,  and  yet  not  acquainted, 
when  they  live  and  eat  together  day  after 
day.  One  can  not  keep  aloof  altogether 
without  appearing  supercilious,  and  one 
can  not  be  too  intimate  without  the  risk 

63 


of  making  connections  that  would  other- 
wise have  been  avoided. 

It  is  easiest  to  know  people  by  what 
they  regard  as  their  real  aim  in  life ;  if 
this  aim  is  power  or  pleasure,  they  are  not 
wholly  to  be  trusted. 

In  his  later  years,  the  outlines  of  a  man's 
character  ordinarily  come  out  much  more 
clearly  than  in  his  earlier.  Real  piety  re- 
veals itself  in  the  patient  bearing  of  the 
manifold  burdens  of  age,  fictitious  piety 
in  impatience  and  in  a  religion  that  be- 
comes more  and  more  formal.  Avarice, 
envy,  covetousness,  anger,  the  love  of 
honor  and  praise,  and  even,  at  times,  the 
desire  of  secret,  sensual  pleasure,  come 
with  elementary,  unmistakable  force  to 
light  as  the  ruling  passions  of  life ;  and 
the  man  pronounces  his  own  judgment  in 
the  sight  of  his  fellows.  Rarely  does  any 
one,  like  Augustus,  carry  a  role  through 
to  the  end,  and  even  this  great  actor  was 
not  successful.  On  the  other  hand,  no 
one  can  read  Cromweirs  last  prayer  and 
think  him  a  hypocrite,  unless  he  is  one 
himself. 

And  finally,  sorrows  play  their  part  in 
revealing  human  nature.  In  any  great 
sorrow  the  thoughts  of  men  are  disclosed. 


Envy  comes  to  light  to  rejoice  ;  generosity, 
to  help  ;  and  indifference,  to  pass  by  on 
the  other  side.  Whoever  has  had  no  thor- 
ough experience  of  this  in  person,  does 
not  know  men.  In  the  first  part  of  life, 
when  experience  is  still  small,  the  greatest 
danger  in  one's  attitude  to  men  is  that  of 
considering  them  of  too  much  importance  ; 
in  the  second,  that  of  becoming  too  indif- 
ferent to  them. 

There  is  yet  another  and  quite  different 
source  of  the  knowledge  of  human  nature, 
but  a  source  not  to  be  desired  for  any  one 
not  already  acquainted  with  it ;  I  mean  the 
power  possessed  by  the  nervously  dis- 
ordered. In  such  cases  there  is  a  very 
clear  physical  intuition  as  to  the  kind  of 
nature  there  is  in  other  people,  of  whom 
the  one  may  have  as  quieting  and  refresh- 
ing an  influence  upon  the  sick  man  as 
clear,  cool  water,  while  the  other  only 
excites  and  frets.  Such  is  the  knowledge  of 
men  the  Bible  ascribes  to  those  "  possessed 
of  evil  spirits."  But  these  are  diseased  con- 
ditions which  ought  not  to  be,  and  which 
should  not  be  needlessly  meddled  with. 

Experience  has  established  some  of  the 
following  principles  in  the  art  of  reading 
men: 


As  with  courtesy,  so  it  is  with  a  man's 
probity  ;  if  it  is  genuine,  it  shows  itself  in 
his  conduct  in  the  small  things.  Probity 
in  small  matters  springs  from  a  moral 
foundation,  while  probity  on  the  large 
scale  is  often  only  habit  or  prudence  and 
gives  no  clew  as  to  a  man's  real  character. 

Vanity  and  thelustfor  honors  are  always  a 
bad  symptom,  for  both  rest  at  bottom  upon 
a  self-condemnation  which  tries  to  supply 
the  missing  inner  contentment  by  outward 
show  or  the  approving  judgment  of  others. 
Thoroughgoing  pessimists  are  always 
vain.  By  their  pessimism  they  give  us  to 
understand  more  or  less  clearly  that  they 
themselves  would  really  be  an  exception  to 
this  base  human  rabble  if  they  could  count 
on  understanding  their  nature. 

An  overmodest  nature,  especially  if 
given  to  self-irony,  is  never  to  be  trusted ; 
in  most  cases  a  strong  dose  of  vanity  and 
the  love  of  praise  hides  behind.  Truly 
modest  men  usually  speak  neither  good  nor 
bad  of  themselves,  and  do  not  want  people 
to  concern  themselves  about  them.  Vain 
persons,  on  the  other  hand,  by  the  appar- 
ently modest  method  of  self-depreciation, 
often  seek  to  draw  attention  to  themselves, 
or  to  catch  out-and-out  compliments. 
66 


A  kind-hearted  readiness  to  help  is  the 
sure  sign  of  a  good  character,  while  cruelty 
to  animals  and  ridicule  of  men  is  a  sure 
sign  of  a  bad  character. 

One  of  the  best  tests  of  real  kind-heart- 
edness is  the  conduct  of  men  in  the 
presence  of  long-persisting  or  altogether 
hopeless  misfortune :  those  who  possess 
but  little  of  that  quality  grow  weary  and 
soon  abandon  the  unfortunate  one  to  his 
fate,  perhaps  with  the  fine  sentiment,  "  one 
must  leave  him  alone  with  his  God " ; 
others,  who  with  a  true  sympathy  per- 
severe, stand  the  highest  test  of  the 
unselfish  love  of  humanity.  Such  are 
ordinarily  simple,  poor  people,  while  the 
cultured  and  the  rich  far  more  rarely  show 
themselves  equal  to  the  test.  This  natural 
nobility  of  character,  the  most  valuable 
of  all  the  natural  endowments  of  men,  is 
far  more  generally  found  in  the  lower 
classes,  and  the  "  noblest  of  the  nations  " 
are  to  be  sought  elsewhere  than  where  we 
are  wont,  in  the  usual  manner  of  speaking, 
to  assume  them  to  be. 

The  basest  human  characteristic  is  innate 
faithlessness.  When  this  is  present,  all 
the  other  so-called  good  qualities  do  not 
countervail;  they  but  make  the  man  the 

67 


more  dangerous,  while  faithfulness  makes 
some  expiation  for  the  worst  failings. 

A  sure  mark  of  an  essentially  mean  man 
is  ingratitude.  It  sets  him  below  the 
nobler  animals,  all  of  which  are  grateful. 
An  especially  hateful  form  of  ingratitude 
is  that  which,  in  order  to  escape  the  neces- 
sity of  showing  gratitude,  treats  the  accept- 
ance of  benefits  as  a  favor  shown  by  the 
receiver  and  therefore  an  honor  conferred 
upon  the  giver  for  which  he  must  feel  un- 
der obligation.  Benefits  received  generally 
make  only  the  noble-minded  thankful. 
Others  as  soon  as  possible  seek  a  pretext 
to  avoid  this  feeling,  to  them  oppressive. 
The  paying  back  of  borrowed  money, 
particularly,  is  regarded  as  a  merit  on  their 
part  for  which  the  creditor  owes  them  life- 
long gratitude. 

In  the  correct  estimation  of  men,  the 
most  important  consideration  is  the  caliber 
they  possess.  But  caliber  can  not  be  given 
a  man  even  by  the  best  of  education  and 
the  highest  of  culture.  Caliber  is  a  gift 
of  nature  ;  a  baby  cat  will  never  become  a 
lion,  similar  as  they  may  at  first  appear  to 
be.  The  caliber  present  in  a  man  can  be 
but  enlarged,  not  changed,  through  the 
great  happenings  of  life,  through  severe 
68 


sorrows,  or  through  a  very  good  environ- 
ment, particularly  if  one  have  faithful  and 
very  well-disposed  friends,  or  if  one  make 
the  right  marriage.  We  must,  therefore, 
be  careful  not  to  wrong  men  by  rating 
them  too  high  and  so  requiring  too  much 
of  them ;  it  is  not  in  their  power  to  do  it, 
but  after  their  fashion,  perhaps,  they  may 
be  good,  faithful  men,  on  whom  we  may 
count  for  something,  and  who  often  ac- 
complish more  than  they  would  if  they 
imagined  themselves  to  be  of  more  con- 
sequence than  they  are. 

We  must  never  seek  for  an  intimate 
personal  knowledge  of  the  people  to  whom 
we  want  to  surrender  ourselves  uncon- 
ditionally, or  to  whom  we  intend  to  remain 
unconditionally  hostile ;  for  in  both  in- 
stances we  shall  become  easily  disconcerted 
by  finding  characteristics  in  them  which 
will  contradict  our  preconceived  opinions. 
For  a  like  reason,  one  ought  to  learn  to 
know  one's  enemies  in  person,  and  on  the 
other  hand,  not  to  see  one's  friends  too 
often. 

A  man's  reputation  is  not  absolutely 
determinative  in  forming  an  estimate  of 
him.  Men  of  note,  especially,  are  often 
different  from  what  we  had  fancied  them 


to  be.  On  the  whole,  however,  the  public 
judgment  passed  on  a  man  seldom  goes 
altogether  astray  and  is  a  very  important 
factor  in  making  up  our  estimate.  In 
particular,  there  is  no  such  thing  as  a  com- 
plete misappreciation  of  a  good  man  all  his 
life  through.  The  public  judgment  as  to 
men  who  are  much  exposed  to  such  judg- 
ment is  generally  subject,  indeed,  to  con- 
tinual fluctuation,  like  the  surface  of  water, 
but  it,  nevertheless,  has  the  tendency  (not 
to  be  deflected)  of  ever  returning  again  to 
its  proper  level.  In  the  case  of  all  good 
men,  we  can  count  on  their  having  an 
aristocratic  nature.  Democracy  is  correct, 
as  a  political  conviction,  but  as  an  in- 
grained characteristic  it  has  no  worth. 

Men  who  are  fundamentally  good  we 
learn  best  to  know  in  their  time  of  trouble, 
for  then  the  possibilities  that  lie  within 
them  come  more  clearly  to  light;  but  men 
of  mediocre  worth  we  learn  best  to  know 
in  their  time  of  prosperity  and  by  their 
manner  of  enjoying  pleasures. 

All  who  hate  men  on  principle  are 
themselves  egotists.  On  the  other  hand, 
it  is  certainly  a  matter  of  experience  that 
we  do  have  disillusionments  even  as  to 
the  best  men,  and  as  to  educated  people 
70 


even  more  than  simple  folk.  As  a  general 
thing,  one  should  not  put  absolute  trust 
in  men,  and  the  best  and  most  trustworthy 
friendships  are  those  which  have  either 
sprung  from  a  previous  enmity,  or  have 
been  once  (but  not  twice)  broken  off. 
For  then  alone  does  one  see  the  shadow 
side  of  his  friend,  and  so  can  henceforth 
discount  it.  On  the  other  hand,  a  fre- 
quent vacillation  between  friendship  and 
hostility  is  a  mark  of  a  weak  character. 

That  we  learn  to  know  our  real  friends 
only  in  time  of  need,  and  that  we  should 
quietly  let  those  go  who  are  then  unfaithful, 
is  a  truth  almost  too  trifling  to  be  once  more 
expressed. 

Why  it  is  that,  when  misfortune  comes, 
we  suddenly  possess  friends  so  startlingly 
few,  is  to  be  explained  psychologically 
thus :  the  less  generous  natures  are  afraid 
they  will  be  obliged  to  give  actual  help, 
while  the  more  generous  often  think  they 
see  the  impossibility  of  rendering  any  help 
at  all  and  are  ashamed,  wrongly,  to  offer 
only  sympathy.  In  many  cases  even  very 
well-wishing  men  fall  into  the  mistake  of 
Job's  friends  and  involuntarily  assume  that 
every  misfortune  is  more  or  less  one's  own 
fault,  so  that  pity  must  be  tempered  by 
censure  and  admonitions.  Then  the  more 

71 


thoughtless   ones   speak   out    their   mind, 
while   men   of  finer   feelings   rather   draw 
back,  so  as  not  to  be  obliged  to  do  it. 
And  all  this  is  still  oftener  true  in  the 
case  of  relatives. 

To  be  envied  is  a  very  disagreeable  thing 
to  have  accompany  one  through  life,  and 
it  usually  ceases  only  toward  life's  end. 
But  it  is,  for  all  persons  of  real  conse- 
quence, a  very  necessary  protection  against 
too  great  a  veneration  on  the  part  of  others. 
Such  veneration  would  do  much  more  harm 
if  it  were  unmixed  with  envy.  And  it  is  gen- 
erally of  little  value.  A  dram  of  real 
friendship  is  worth  much  more  than  a 
whole  wagon-load  of  veneration. 

One  great  rule  for  finding  out  men  is 
this :  give  yourself  out  to  be  frankly  just 
what  you  are ;  above  all,  frankly  hate 
wrong  things  on  principle,  and  let  no 
opportunity  of  showing  it  pass  by.  Then 
men  will  show  their  own  cards  more  openly 
to  you.  Public  personages,  in  particular, 
must  in  their  whole  life  be  clear  as  glass 
and  transparent  as  crystal,  so  that  men 
may  see  everything  without  reserve. 

In  general,  as  to  good  qualities,  men 
like  best  to  speak  of  those  they  do  not 

72 


possess ;  while,  as  to  evil  qualities,  the 
proverb  speaks  truly :  "  With  what  the 
heart  is  full,  with  that  the  mouth  runs 
over."  People  who  take  pleasure  in  speak- 
ing often  of  impure  things  and  the  dan- 
gers of  the  world  in  this  regard,  although 
they  may  do  so  with  the  most  earnest  show 
of  disapprobation,  always  feel  a  strong 
secret  inclination  thereto.  Others,  whose 
every  third  word  is  "  benevolence "  and 
"  good  works,"  have  to  struggle  with  a  dis- 
position toward  avarice  or  covetousness. 
The  worst  are  those  who  are  forever  talk- 
ing of  " uprightness  "  and  "loyalty." 

Most  fanatics  for  some  specialty  have 
become  such  because  they  knew  very  well 
in  the  beginning  that  without  such  a 
heightening  of  their  feeling  they  would 
not  persevere  in  it.  In  most  cases,  there- 
fore, they  are  not  wholly  sincere. 

It  is  one  of  the  best  signs  for  a  man  if 
humble  people  feel  confidence  and  good- 
will toward  him  —  little  children,  above 
all,  but  also  simple-hearted  poor  folks,  and 
even  animals.  The  man  whom  children 
and  animals  can  not  endure  is  not  to  be 
trusted.  Women,  too,  are  good  judges — 
that  is,  if  they  themselves  are  good;  other- 
wise they  are  just  the  opposite.  To  be 

73 


much  with  unpretending  people  contrib- 
utes greatly  to  one's  contentment  with  life. 
All  great  pessimists  have  despised  them, 
yet  have  found  no  satisfaction  in  the  peo- 
ple of  more  importance  whose  companion- 
ship they  have  sought. 

Pessimism  and  the  detestation  of  one's 
fellow-men,  when  displayed  by  young  peo- 
ple, point  (if  they  are  not  merely  talking 
for  effect)  to  irregular  habits  of  living. 
But  they  who  keep  their  youth  clean  have 
a  source  of  unfailing  delight  in  life. 

We  are  not  upright  because  men  praise 
us  ;  we  are  upright  if  we  receive  the  praise 
of  God.  Any  one  who  has  ever  experi- 
enced this  will  also  know  that,  however 
unreliable  and  cheap  the  praise  of  men 
may  be,  it  always  makes  us  a  little  proud 
and  leads  us  away  from  the  truth,  but  the 
praise  of  God  never  has  any  such  result. 
Of  pious  people  who  are  proud  the  asser- 
tion can  quite  safely  be  made  that  God  has 
never  praised  them ;  they  praise  themselves 
and  let  others  praise  them. 

Pride  is  always  mixed  with  a  portion  of 
stupidity.  Vanity  makes  us  ridiculous  to 
people,  but  not  odious ;  pride,  on  the 
other  hand,  so  works  upon  others  as  to 
call  out  defiance  mingled  with  contempt. 
74 


As  the  proverb  says,  pride  always  goes 
immediately  before  a  fall.  When  a  man 
becomes  proud,  he  has  lost  his  game,  and 
it  may  be  safely  counted  on  that  he  is 
approaching  a  downfall.  As  soon  as  God 
forsakes  us,  our  own  heart  is  lifted  up. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  faults  which  have 
become  clear  to  ourselves  and  which  have 
bred  humility  within  us  are  often  not 
so  very  perceptible  to  others.  They  no 
longer  put  themselves  so  noticeably  in 
evidence  as  do  the  faults  we  will  not  or 
can  not  yet  see.  This  is  the  first  striking 
reward  of  battling  against  oneself. 

Every  one  stands  in  need  of  straight- 
forward but  kindly  criticism.  This  is  the 
reason  progress  is  made  by  the  simple 
people  who,  when  they  make  a  mistake, 
are  censured  and  admonished  by  every- 
body, without  any  beating  around  the 
bush ;  while  people  of  higher  standing, 
after  their  school  years  are  over,  seldom 
have  the  advantage  of  being  judiciously 
censured.  Even  their  critics  often  only 
wish  to  show  them  how  important  and 
indispensable  they  are  to  them,  and  attack 
some  minor  defect  of  little  moment  one 
way  or  the  other. 

75 


It  is  an  important  thing  to  acquire  the  art 
of  speaking  of  one's  own  doings  in  a  quiet 
and  matter-of-fact  manner,  if,  indeed,  they 
have  to  be  spoken  of  at  all.  It  usually 
happens  that  some  men  show  themselves 
too  vain  of  their  accomplishments,  and 
thereby  arouse  open  or  secret  opposition  ; 
while  others  speak  of  them  with  a  certain 
off-hand  disparagement,  as  much  as  to  say 
that  they  have  plenty  more  in  stock.  It 
is  the  best  way  to  speak  of  one's  perform- 
ances as  little  as  possible,  and,  in  any 
case,  never  to  introduce  the  subject  one- 
self. Vanity  is  always  recognized,  even  by 
the  simplest.  The  only  sure  means  of  not 
passing  for  a  vain  man  is — not  to  be  vain. 

If  a  young  man  is  forward  or  even  only 
very  confident,  if  there  is  not  a  little  of 
shyness  about  him,  he  has  a  defective 
character  and  little  real  merit ;  or  at  least 
he  has  ripened  very  early  and  will  develop 
no  further.  The  widespread  prepossession 
that,  without  plenty  of  assurance,  one  can 
not  get  through  the  world  is  incorrect, 
unless  one  is  thinking  of  momentary  suc- 
cess. 

A  very  suspicious,  at  any  rate  impru- 
dent, propensity  of  many  people  is  that 
of  being  the  bearers  of  bad  news.  The 


motives,  indeed,  may  be  very  different; 
but  in  most  cases  there  is  mingled  with  it 
a  kind  of  self-elevation  which  takes  pleas- 
ure in  seeing  others  deeply  shaken  and 
humbled,  an  ungenerous  feeling  that  often 
comes  very  near  to  being  malice.  This  is 
instinctively  felt  on  the  other  side,  and 
something  of  the  unpleasant  remembrance 
is  ever  afterward  associated  with  the  one 
who  caused  it. 

Those  persons  are  of  no  worth  who 
have  never  been  broken  by  a  great  sorrow 
or  by  a  thorough  humiliation  of  their  self- 
esteem.  They  retain  something  small,  or 
arrogantly  self-righteous,  or  unkind  about 
them  which,  in  spite  of  their  probity  (which 
they  ordinarily  think  a  great  deal  of),  makes 
them  disagreeable  to  God  and  man. 

One  must  always  be  on  one's  guard  be- 
fore people  who  do  not  have  a  kindly  nature. 
A  natural  disposition  to  maliciousness  is 
very  hard  to  be  overcome.  It  shows  it- 
self most  easily  in  a  tendency  to  making 
sport  of  others. 

It  is  an  uncommonly  pleasant  thing,  on 
the  other  hand,  to  have  to  do  with  people 
who  make  their  fellow-men  feel  comfortable 
in  their  presence,  who  are  always  even- 

77 


OF 


tempered,  always  friendly  and  ready  to 
help,  never  nervously  unquiet  or  intrusive, 
rejoicing  in  the  welfare  of  others,  sympa- 
thetic and  consolatory  in  trouble.  This  does 
not  necessitate  a  clever  mind ;  on  the 
contrary,  the  very  clever  people  often  lack 
just  this  quality,  which,  for  the  first  time, 
would  make  all  their  other  qualities  really 
useful  and  valuable. 

At  ordinary  times  it  is  very  difficult  to 
recognize  real  bravery.  Yet  there  is  one 
unfailing  sign.  Brave  people  never  enter 
a  fight  with  arrogance  and  are  less  afraid 
after  a  defeat  than  after  a  victory,  since 
every  victory  works  some  injustice  to  the 
opposing  side ;  while  cowards  show  them- 
selves arrogant  after  every  victory.  As  to 
this  characteristic,  a  man  best  learns  to 
know  himself  in  his  dreams.  There  he 
sees  himself  as  he  is,  being  beyond  the  con- 
trol of  a  better  will  that  does  not  depend 
upon  merely  physical  and  mental  emo- 
tions. 

A  crafty  shrewdness  always  lowers  a  man 
in  our  regard.  We  think  of  the  possibility 
of  its  being  used  against  us.  Therefore, 
as  a  proverb  says,  "  all  foxes  come  to  be 
skinned  at  last."  No  one  likes  them,  and 
in  the  long  run  they  lose  their  game. 

78 


Every  man  should  perfect  his  own  na- 
tional type.  When  a  man  no  longer  knows 
to  which  nation  he  belongs,  he  becomes  an 
unedifying  phenomenon.  Therefore  dwell- 
ers on  the  border  are  often  vacillating  in 
their  nature,  and  polyglot  speech  is,  as  a 
rule,  a  mark  neither  of  genius  nor  of  char- 
acter. The  most  questionable  people  are 
those  who  mingle  different  languages  in  a 
single  sentence  and  who  lack  education 
besides. 

Not  very  much,  on  the  whole,  is  to  be 
learned  from  the  external  features  of  a 
man ;  the  science  of  physiognomy  is  a 
deceptive  one,  generally  speaking.  Yet 
a  strong  development  of  the  lower  part  of 
the  face  as  contrasted  with  the  upper,  an 
insignificant  chin,  expressionless  eyes,  an 
ever  uneasy  glance  of  the  eye,  and  a  habit 
of  speaking  very  loud  in  the  case  of  women, 
portend  nothing  favorable.  Happily,  these 
latter  are  never  able  to  imitate  the  expres- 
sion of  innocence. 

The  wide  diffusion  of  photography  has 
been  very  injurious  for  the  knowledge  of 
human  nature,  since  they  usually  make 
the  photograph  a  deceptive  portrait,  and 
one  who  sees  it  is,  therefore,  favorably  pre- 
possessed. 

79 


As  to  human  efficiency,  it  mostly  depends 
upon  a  certain  confidence  a  man  has  with 
his  contemporaries.  God  alone  can  give 
this,  and,  as  a  rule,  it  appears  late,  in  the 
case  of  men  of  real  note.  All  the  stones 
must  first  be  rejected  by  the  builders  be- 
fore they  can  become  the  head  of  the  corner. 
This  is  the  only  right  course  for  a  man's 
life  to  take,  and  no  sort  of  exertion  can 
supply  its  place. 

With  men  of  original  qualities  one  usu- 
ally goes  through  three  stages  of  acquaint- 
anceship. In  the  first  stage,  they  please 
one  absolutely ;  in  the  second,  they  rather 
repel,  on  account  of  the  angularities  and 
singularities  of  all  sorts  in  their  nature ;  in 
the  third,  however,  the  whole  man  again 
pleases.  But  in  the  case  of  more  ordinary 
men,  one's  first  impression  is  slight,  the 
second  is  often  better,  on  account  of  vari- 
ous good  individual  qualities,  but  the  final 
impression,  again,  is  unsatisfying.  Take 
it  all  in  all,  one  may  perhaps  say  that  the 
first  impression  one  has  of  a  man,  provided 
one  is  himself  quite  unprejudiced,  is  the 
right  one. 

Hardest  of  all  it  is  to  read  human  na- 
ture  from  the  point  of  view  of  religion. 
80 


It  is  easiest  to  do  so  along  the  lines  of  the 
first  epistle  of  John,  the  first  six  verses  of 
the  fourth  chapter,  and  the  first  five  verses 
of  the  fifth  chapter.  But,  along  with  this, 
we  must  not  exclude  a  certain  human  ex- 
cellence which  rests  upon  philosophical 
culture,  or  upon  great  sagacity  and  experi- 
ence of  life.  All  piety  must  make  one 
more  friendly,  or  it  is  not  genuine. 

Who  are  to  be  preferred,  the  nice  people 
who  are  not  religious,  or  the  religious 
people  (and  there  are  really  such)  who  are 
not  (at  least  not  always)  nice  ?  I  am  afraid 
this  is  the  point  where  our  view  does  not 
always  coincide  with  God's.  (Luke  v.  32.) 

To  do  things  on  generous  lines  often 
seems,  especially  to  the  man  still  young, 
easier  than  to  do  things  along  the  lines  of 
duty.  Well,  then,  do  so  at  first.  But 
when  you  can  once  do  the  one,  then  you 
must  learn  to  do  the  other  also,  else  your 
life  remains  beautiful — but  incomplete. 

The  visitation  of  sins  unto  the  third  and 
fourth  generation  may  be  regarded  from 
this  point  of  view :  that  for  so  long  a 
period  God  is  yet  laboring  with  these  gen- 
erations. The  worst  that  can  happen  to 
men  is  not  this  visitation,  but  that  God 
may  leave  them  henceforth  quite  to  their 
G  81 


own  way  and  will.  For  the  wicked,  visi- 
tation is,  therefore,  always  a  tender  of  am- 
nesty, but  lasting  good  fortune  means  re- 
jection. 

A  temperament  always  equable,  some- 
what cool  but  not  selfish,  and  sympathetic 
and  friendly  to  every  one,  is  perhaps  the 
happiest  if  one  wishes  to  be  generally  liked. 
Such  men  pass  for  especially  amiable  peo- 
ple and  are  universally  esteemed,  without 
their  often  contributing  anything  important 
and  solid  to  the  advance  of  the  world. 
There  are  actually  people,  therefore,  who 
assume  this  manner  from  policy.  But 
whether  these  amiable  people  have  not, 
after  all,  buried  their  talent,  is  another 
question. 

That  intercourse  with  men  which  is  the 
art  of  life  is  necessarily  based,  if  it  is  to  be 
brought  under  rational  rules  at  all,  upon 
a  correct  knowledge  of  men.  For  who- 
ever voluntarily  seeks  the  companionship 
of  men  whom  he  knows  to  be  bad  or  false 
is,  with  all  his  knowledge  of  human  nature, 
a  fool  and  a  suicide  besides.  In  this  point 
we  have  departed  widely  from  the  concep- 
tions of  our  grandfathers ;  human  inter- 
course has  to-day  become  much  less  sen- 
82 


timental  and  much  more  serious  than  a 
hundred  years  ago.  In  this  matter  the 
ever-recurring  question  whether  the  men 
are  by  nature  good  or  bad  is  beside  the 
mark.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  men  have  the 
disposition  to  be  both,  and  it  is  our  con- 
cern, therefore,  as  Paul  says,  not  to  be 
overcome  of  the  evil  we  can  not  avoid 
meeting,  but  to  overcome  evil  with  good. 

If  one  does  not  always  keep  this  before 
his  eyes  as  a  fundamental  rule  of  life,  then 
all  intercourse  with  the  bad  and  weak 
(which  is  never  to  be  wholly  evaded)  will 
be,  for  men  of  the  better  sort,  an  evil  that 
may  lead  at  last  to  a  contempt  for  humanity 
and  a  desire  for  isolation,  or  else  to  an  in- 
difference toward  all  true  principles.  Here, 
also,  there  are  a  number  of  maxims  taught 
by  experience,  whose  observation  will  make 
one's  intercourse  with  men  at  least  more 
easy.  They  are  as  follows : 

One  gets  into  the  best  relations  with 
men,  on  the  whole,  if  he  feels  a  simple, 
natural,  sincere  friendliness  toward  every 
one  he  meets,  in  much  the  same  manner 
as  unspoiled  children  do  before  they  have 
experienced  the  meanness  of  men.  This 
manner,  after  many  painful  experiences, 
can  be  again  acquired, — at  least  at  a  cer- 

83 


tain  period  in  later  life  which  may  then 
be  called,  in  this  good  sense,  a  second 
childhood.  When  one  has  this  attitude, 
it  may  even  happen  that  he  treats  evil 
men  as  if  good,  as  they  could  be  if  they 
would,  and  as,  in  their  better  moments, 
they  would  really  like  to  be.  And  the 
result  is  that  these  men  forget  their  evil 
nature  for  a  time  and  feel  better  and  hap- 
pier. That,  and  not  "  the  destruction  of 
the  wicked,"  is  a  true  man's  greatest  victory  i 
in  this  world. 

At  the  same  time  it  must  not  be  for- 
gotten that  one  should  not  put  too  great 
stress  upon  a  man's  behavior  at  the  mo- 
ment ;  for  every  one  can  tell  from  his 
own  experience  how  easily  our  moods 
alter,  and  how  changeable  and  uncertain 
our  judgments  of  others  are,  so  long  as 
the  heart  has  not  yet  become  constant 
in  kindness. 

All  lasting  human  relationships  rest 
upon  reciprocity.  We  must  never  be 
willing  only  to  receive,  nor  must  we  ever 
be  willing  only  to  give ;  that  always  ends 
in  dissatisfaction. 

The  opportunity  of  rendering  great 
favors  to  men  is  not  very  frequent.  On 
the  other  hand,  one  can  quietly  do  any 


one  some  small  pleasure,  though  it  be 
nothing  more  than  a  friendly  greeting  to 
light  up,  like  a  sunbeam,  some  lonely  and 
joyless  existence.  We  should  not  begin 
a  day  of  our  life  without  proposing  to 
ourselves  to  make  use  of  every  oppor- 
tunity in  this  way.  This  friendliness  is 
merely  a  matter  of  habit  that  even  men 
essentially  kind-hearted  now  and  then  do 
not  have,  to  their  great  loss. 

Quite  ordinary  natures,  of  course,  un- 
derstand only  fear,  not  love.  As  soon  as 
they  no  longer  fear,  they  become  forward 
and  intractable.  For  these  the  proverb 
holds  good  :  "  Be  always  kind,  yet  not 
too  kindly ;  else  the  wolves  will  quickly 
grow  bold."  For  others,  however,  the 
proverb  is  not  true.  On  the  other  hand, 
real  kindness  is  the  ripest  fruit  of  a  well- 
lived  life. 

Many  men,  by  doing  things  in  a  large 
style,  wish  to  compel  their  fellow-men  to 
recognize  it.  But  they  seldom  succeed, 
since  the  other  man  marks  this  purpose ; 
and  after  all,  egotism  (though  of  a  some- 
what different  kind  than  usual)  hides  be- 
hind. They  would  attain  their  goal  far 
better  if  they  paid  less  heed  to  outward 
show  and  did  things  more  quietly. 

Many    people    who    are    really    good- 

85 


hearted  at  bottom  have  a  way  of  always 
finding  something  to  blame  or  demur  to 
even  in  matters  that  fall  in  with  their 
wishes.  Thus  they  bring  it  about  that 
other  persons,  hearing  only  their  "  No, 
no/'  prefer  the  company  of  more  easy- 
going, if  also  more  unprincipled,  people 
of  the  world.  Nor  should  one  always  be 
contradicting  men,  even  where  they  are 
in  the  wrong;  silence  often  accomplishes 
more  and  does  not  embitter.  Now  and 
then  their  assertions  are  not  wholly  in 
earnest,  but  if  they  experience  opposi- 
tion, then  they  become  fortified  in  their 
notions  and  say  something  that  they  can 
no  longer  retract.  But  if  one  ought  to 
contradict  for  the  truth's  sake,  then  a  sin- 
gle contradiction  is  enough  ;  when  opinions 
are  once  acknowledged  and  firmly  fixed, 
continued  disputation  about  them  is  en- 
tirely fruitless. 

"  Whoever  wishes  to  have  his  opinion 
find  approval  should  express  it  coldly  and 
without"  passion,"  says  Schopenhauer,  if  I 
am  not  mistaken.  The  word  "coldly"  is 
somewhat  too  strong ;  but  to  parler  sans 
accent,  that  is,  to  speak  in  the  positive  and 
not  always  in  the  superlative  degree,  is  a 
good  custom. 

Of  one's  neighbor  one  should — so  St. 
86 


Maddalena  del  Pazzi  tells  us  —  "speak 
as  little  as  possible,  for  one  begins  with 
good  things,  but  usually  ends  up  with 
bad  things.  Our  neighbor  is  a  glass 
that  easily  breaks  if  we  take  it  into  our 
hands  too  often." 

It  is  a  great  art  in  human  intercourse  to 
be  able  to  show  friendly  opposition  on  oc- 
casion. We  should,  among  other  things, 
give  our  reasons — not  merely  for  conven- 
ience simply  say  No,  but  try  to  convince 
the  other  with  good  arguments  rather  than 
be  dictatorial.  All  men  see,  in  such  an 
appeal  to  their  understanding,  a  proof 
of  respect  which  gratifies  them  and  often 
quite  reconciles  them  to  the  negative  out- 
come. 

A  suspension  of  judgment  is  often  very 
useful.  With  a  "  We  will  consider  it,"  or 
"  Let  us  think  it  over,"  good-will  is  shown 
for  the  time  being,  while  the  decision  is 
put  off;  and  with  that,  often  enough,  the 
whole  matter  is  discharged.  The  other 
man  will  in  the  mean  time  change  his 
mind  ;  or  the  matter  will  seem  to  him  of 
less  importance;  while,  at  the  moment, 
his  desire  was  his  very  kingdom  of  t- 
heaven. 

But   all  this  does  not  apply  in  things 

87 


indubitably  wrong.  Then  we  must  not 
give  rise  to  the  conception  that  we  might 
finally  be  able  to  come  to  an  agreement  in 
the  matter  or  regard  it  as  at  least  feasible  ; 
but  on  the  contrary,  we  must  "  resist  the 
beginnings." 

The  most  unfortunate  method  of  all  is 
to  yield  in  an  unfriendly  spirit;  by  so 
doing  we  lose  the  game  twice  over.  But 
with  weak  men  this  is  the  usual  course  ; 
they  wish  to  hide  their  weakness  by  a 
little  blustering  and  scolding. 

In  matters  of  indifference  (and  they  are 
infinitely  many),  we  must  always  do  the 
will  of  others  ;  that  makes  living  easy  and 
brings  good  friends  without  any  attending 
difficulties. 

With  dependent  people  it  is  best  to  be 
short,  but  always  friendly  and  good-man- 
nered, if  they  themselves  know  their 
place ;  otherwise  "  parcere  subjectis  et 
debellare  suferbos" 

It  is  always  difficult  to  know  how  to  con- 
duct oneself  rightly  toward  very  wealthy 
or  very  distinguished  people  ;  for  to  be 
with  them  means  either  a  kind  of  depend- 
ent relationship,  or  a  constant  watchfulness 
against  receiving  favors  that  is  inconsist- 
ent with  real  friendship.  Real  friendship 
88 


gladly  gives  and  gladly  receives,  without 
keeping  any  account.  Besides,  wealth  and 
distinction  very  often  make  men  insen- 
sible to  life's  true  riches,  and  limit  them  in 
their  views  of  men  and  life. 

It  is  not  pleasant  to  have  to  do  with 
people  who  do  not  think  out  their  own 
problems,  but  are  always  seeking  advice 
and  never  following  it.  One  should  espe- 
cially avoid  lightly  advising  one  to  marry 
or  not  to  marry,  nor  should  one  ever  ex- 
press his  opinion  to  authors  about  their 
yet  unpublished  works.  It  is  very  hard, 
too,  to  fellowship  with  those  who  are 
"persecuted  by  fate,"  and  have  no  con- 
ception of  their  own  failings.  Christ  him- 
self on  one  occasion  curtly  dismissed  such 
a  man,  who  wished  to  make  him  a  "judge 
and  a  divider." 

Those  who  are  always  reflecting  over 
themselves  or  others,  likewise  make  com- 
panions in  whom  is  no  reliance  nor  peace. 
They  are  always  vain,  besides  weak  and 
forever  vacillating  in  their  judgment  of 
others,  as  well  as  in  their  estimation  of 
themselves.  They  love  no  one,  not  al- 
ways themselves  even,  and  are  loved  by 
no  one.  Shun  them. 


Against  naively  shameless  people  there 
are  three  kinds  of  self-defence :  roughness, 
which,  however,  is  somewhat  lowering ; 
coldness,  which  is  not  human  and  leaves  a 
reproach  on  the  conscience  ;  and  humor. 
The  last  alone  shows  true  superiority. 

Selfish  men  who  have  quite  lost  the 
sense  of  shame  have  a  way,  when  they 
want  something  of  another  man,  of  insinu- 
ating to  him  that  it  will  be  for  his  own  ad- 
vantage, so  that  they  may  be  exempt  from 
showing  gratitude  or  from  resting  under 
any  other  obligation  in  return.  This  is 
something  one  must  not,  even  tacitly,  ig- 
nore, but  first  set  the  matter  quietly  upon 
its  proper  footing,  if  he  intends  to  re- 
spond to  the  request. 

Should  one  always  give  to  those  who 
beg  ?  I  believe,  generally  speaking,  yes ; 
the  commands  of  Christianity  in  this  re- 
gard are  too  positive ;  in  most  cases  the 
question  is  rather  "  How  much  ?  "  and 
this  depends  upon  the  good-will  of  the 
giver.  One  should  at  least  turn  beggars 
away  in  a  friendly  spirit;  a  kind  word  is 
also  a  gift  and  many  a  time  of  more  real 
value  than  a  small  bit  of  money.  But 
that  is  something  to  be  learnt,  and  is  really 
a  very  great  art. 
90 


To  give  cheerfully  is,  on  the  other  hand, 
partly  a  habit.  Children  ought  to  be  ac- 
customed to  it  from  childhood,  instead  of 
being  one-sidedly  trained  to  mere  frugality, 
as  more  commonly  happens.  They  should 
be  frugal  as  regards  themselves,  but  not  as 
regards  others. 

An  outward  expedient  is  to  carry  no 
purse ;  it  is  easier  to  thrust  the  hand  into 
the  pocket  than  to  open  a  purse. 

Very  much  that  is  not  the  proper  thing 
in  human  intercourse  springs  from  simple 
inertness  toward  the  good,  or  from  a  de- 
sire for  personal  comfort. 

Many  men,  whom  everybody  knows  by 
sight  and  praises,  are  quiet  and  tolerably 
dutiful — egotists, — whose  ways  one  must 
not  follow. 

The  really  noble  men,  the  aristocracy  of 
the  spirit  as  opposed  to  this  mere  bour- 
geoisie, have  always,  on  the  other  hand, 
found  enemies. 

Perhaps  the  most  useful,  though  by  no 
means  the  pleasantest,  intercourse  is  with 
our  enemies ;  not  only  because  they  are 
often  future  friends,  but  especially  because 
we  receive  from  them,  more  than  from  any 
other,  a  candid  disclosure  as  to  our  own 
faults  and  a  strong  impulse  to  amend 

91 


them ;  because,  too,  they  possess,  on  the 
whole,  the  truest  judgment  as  to  the  weak 
points  of  a  man's  nature.  Finally,  we  also 
learn,  simply  by  living  under  their  sharp 
eyes,  how  to  know  and  practise  the  impor- 
tant virtues  of  self-control,  of  a  strict  love 
for  the  right,  and  of  a  constant  attention 
to  oneself. 

That  is,  therefore,  a  foolish  expression 
(which  is  often  used  with  intent  to  praise) 
when  it  is  said  of  a  man,  perhaps  in  an 
obituary  notice,  that  "  he  had  no  enemies." 
A  man  of  the  right  sort  does  not  go 
through  life  without  making  enemies  ;  but 
it  is  a  fine  thing,  of  course,  if  at  the  end 
of  his  life  he  no  longer  has  any. 

By  this  I  do  not  mean  to  imply  that 
this  intercourse  with  enemies  is  an  easy 
matter ;  on  the  contrary,  it  belongs  to  the 
most  difficult  tasks  of  a  rightly  conducted 
life.  It  is  particularly  hard  to  endure  a 
long  series  of  injustices  which  seem  to 
have  success  on  their  side.  Here  comes 
the  need  of  faith  in  a  just  God,  who  can 
employ  even  the  wicked  as  his  instru- 
ments, but  can  hold  them  so  firmly  in 
hand  that  they  may  go  no  farther  than 
he  wills.  Otherwise  we  should  not  go 
through  these  things  without  harm.  Surely 
no  one  who  has  learned  to  know  himself 
92 


will  make  the  assertion  that  he  is  already  a 
past-master  in  this  art. 

Trust  in  God  is  the  first  essential ;  after 
that,  the  best  means  for  acquiring  this  art 
is  seriously  to  resolve  that  we  will,  as  much 
as  possible,  avoid  useless  anger,  and  take 
care  not  to  judge  our  opponents  unjustly  ; 
and  in  any  case  never  to  allow  real  hatred 
to  settle  in  the  soul.  This  can  easily  be 
done  at  the  very  first  moment  of  the  af- 
front ;  it  is  harder  later,  when  hate  is  once 
established  in  the  heart.  It  is  very  help- 
ful, besides,  to  fix  clearly  in  mind,  from 
the  beginning,  that  we  absolutely  must 
forgive,  even  to  "seventy  times  seven." 
This  thought  makes  it  much  easier  to  de- 
termine from  the  outset  to  keep  collected, 
and  thus  we  are  better  disposed  to  shut 
out  hatred  from  the  start. 

Here  are  some  other  helpful  consider- 
ations : 

The  truth  is  not  always  victorious  on 
this  earth ;  that  is,  not  the  truth  as  it  is 
embodied  in  a  man,  mixed  with  all  his 
weaknesses  and  errors ;  for  which  very 
reason  it  is  impossible  for  it  always  to 
conquer.  But  God  is  victorious,  and 
nothing  happens  against  his  will ;  this 

93 


alone  is  the  true  consolation  when  ene- 
mies assault  us. 

The  enemies  God  sends  a  man  he  also 
takes  away,  as  soon  as  they  have  fulfilled 
their  purpose.  "When  a  man's  ways  please 
the  Lord,  then  he  sets  even  his  enemies  at 
peace  with  him."  That  is  a  very  sure  sign 
that  one  stands  in  God's  grace. 

It  is  much  better  to  forget  the  evil  one 
receives  than  to  forgive  it.  It  is  easy  for 
a  remnant  of  bitterness  to  cling  about  for- 
giveness, or  a  kind  of  haughtiness,  a  kind 
of  holding  oneself  superior  to  offenders 
"  beneath  one's  notice." 

Bearing  a  grudge,  feeling  resentment, 
taking  things  ill  is  always  a  mark  of  a  rather 
small  nature.  Better  take  revenge ;  impo- 
tent hate  is  quite  worthless  and  injures  only 
yourself,  not  your  adversary. 

In  the  criticisms  made  by  one's  enemies 
there  is  in  most  cases  a  grain  of  truth, 
though  put  in  a  light  too  sharp  and  one- 
sided. Therefore  it  is  always  well  to  listen 
to  an  enemy's  criticisms,  but  not  to  rate 
them  too  high  nor  to  feel  them  too  keenly. 
Above  all,  one  should  never  let  them 
impose  upon  him ;  that  is  always  a  mis- 
take. 

That  men  speak  evil  of  us  is  hard,  but 
it  preserves  us,  as  Thomas  a  Kempis  says, 
94 


"  from  the  magic  mist  of  vainglory,"  and 
compels  us  to  seek  God,  who  knows  our 
innermost  heart,  as  our  witness  and  judge. 
Then  for  the  first  time  he  becomes  indis- 
pensable and  fast  bound  to  us. 

Such  a  passage  through  ignominy  is 
therefore  especially  needful  for  men  who 
afterward  are  to  bear  great  honors  without 
harm. 

One  may  accordingly  be  induced  not  to 
hate  his  enemies,  not  merely  through  mo- 
tives of  religion,  but  also  through  motives 
of  prudence ;  for  enemies  not  only  often 
become  friends  later,  but  one  is  likewise 
indebted  to  them  for  very  many  correct 
views  ;  on  the  other  hand,  those  who  at 
first  are  very  amiable  often  speak  a  dif- 
ferent language  later  on.  Those  who  op- 
pose one  in  important  matters  are  always 
particularly  easy  to  come  to  terms  with ; 
for  they  are  people  who  have  serious 
scruples  and  are  open  to  reason.  The 
indifferent,  who  interpose  no  objections, 
but  also  do  not  listen,  are  far  more  dan- 
gerous opponents. 

The  right  programme  for  one's  demeanor 
toward  enemies  is  not,  generally  speaking, 
that  they  must  be  crushed  (as  would  be 
quite  impossible  in  most  cases),  but  that 

95 


they  are  to  be  reconciled.  Whoever  keeps 
this  constantly  before  his  eyes  will  never 
hate  too  violently  and  will  suffer  much  to 
pass  by  in  silence  that  discussion  would 
make  only  worse. 

Wherever  possible,  then,  we  must  deal 
with  our  enemies  in  our  best  and  calmest 
frame  of  mind ;  for  if  we  are  inwardly 
ruffled,  we  are  also  much  more  inclined 
to  an  unfavorable  and  unjust  judgment  of 
others.  Nor  should  we  lower  ourselves 
before  them  in  order  to  gain  their  good- 
will; that  seldom  succeeds.  Many  men, 
many  nations  in  fact,  will  not  at  all  tolerate 
too  much  kindness. 

Thus  it  is  a  great  point  of  prudence  not 
to  come  frequently,  and  never  unnecessarily, 
into  the  company  of  those  who  are  radically 
opposed  to  our  conception  of  life.  For  we 
either  suffer  some  loss  in  character,  or  there 
results  a  widening  of  the  chasm. 

But  what,  then,  is  there  left  for  us  to 
hate?  or  are  we  to  explain  everything 
away  ?  I  am  far  from  asserting  that. 
There  is  still  enough  left  in  the  world 
worth  hating,  and  with  this,  war  can  and 
must  be  waged.  Above  all,  there  is  the 
spirit  of  being  bad  on  principle,  the  spirit 
that  purposely  contends  against  the  spirit 


of  God,  and  that  persecutes  the  good  be- 
cause it  is  good  and  endeavors  to  overthrow 
it.  To  this  spirit  give  your  vigorous  and 
outspoken  hate,  wherever  and  in  whatever 
form  it  appears ;  but  in  most  cases  it  dies 
out  in  the  men  who  embody  it,  in  the 
third  or  fourth  generation  at  the  very  lat- 
est. Very  often  it  changes,  in  their  de- 
scendants, to  the  opposite  spirit  of  good. 

To  give  help  to  evil  men  of  this  stripe, 
or  to  stand  "  impartially "  between  them 
and  good  men,  instead  of  standing  by  the 
latter  in  every  such  conflict,  is  a  serious 
fault  that  will  be  avenged  on  every  one 
who  is  guilty  of  it. 


A  very  difficult  chapter  to  write  is  that 
on  companionship  with  women,  for  they 
are  the  instruments  of  both  the  best  and 
the  worst  that  can  be  awakened  in  a  man : 
on  the  one  hand,  unbridled  self-gratification 
and  alienation  from  all  that  is  higher  and 
nobler,  qualities  which  they  awaken  espe- 
cially in  young  people  and  which  are  the 
chief  cause  of  the  downfall  of  entire  nations; 
on  the  other  hand,  a  most  efficacious  up- 
lift away  from  a  man's  natural  tendencies, 
to  a  wholly  different,  freer,  and  better  con- 
ception of  life.  Most  critics  of  women 

97 


accordingly  err  in  speaking  of  them  as  of 
a  uniform  mass  similar  in  character,  while, 
on  the  contrary,  in  this  part  of  humanity 
there  is  a  far  more  marked  division  into 
two  distinct  classes,  and  a  much  more  con- 
stant retention  and  transmission  of  good 
as  well  as  bad  characteristics. 

In  a  very  peculiar  passage  of  the  Old 
Testament  the  same  distinction  is  made, 
even  in  that  very  early  stage  of  humanity, 
between  the  "  sons  of  God "  and  the 
"  daughters  of  men,"  who  are  not  lacking 
in  outward  charm,  indeed,  but  through 
their  very  charms  become  a  curse. 

This  difference  in  women  is  still  to  be 
found  in  our  day,  and  so  the  first  counsel 
is  this  :  Have  no  unnecessary  association 
with  the  "  daughters  of  men  "  and  guard 
against  every  closer  alliance  with  them,  no 
matter  what  may  be  sung  by  the. poets,  for 
they  themselves  are  often  led  astray  by 
just  this  peculiar  charm  of  women. 

In  other  respects,  however,  the  differ- 
ence between  women  and  men  would  not 
be  so  great  if  their  education  and  especially 
their  legal  position  were  more  alike,  and 
toward  this  the  politics  and  pedagogy  of 
to-day  are  striving.  Christianity  at  any 
rate  makes  no  distinction,  and  even  the 
Old  Testament  already  knows  of  women 


(even  married  ones)-  who  filled  the  highest 
state  offices,  not  of  hereditary  right  as  to- 
day, forsooth,  but  solely  by  virtue  of  their 
own  worth,  of  the  spirit  which  dwelt 
within.  The  "  spirit  of  God  "  can  surely 
dwell  in  every  human  being,  and  this  is 
the  thing  that  decides,  and  not  the  struc- 
ture of  the  body. 

Women  are  in  general  more  easy  to 
understand  than  men.  They  deceive  no 
man  for  long,  in  the  sense  that  he  really 
holds  the  bad  in  them  for  good,  but  only 
in  the  sense  that  he  prefers  the  bad  to  the 
good  because  of  its  sensual  charm,  in  the 
false  hope  that  this  charm  may  be  a  last- 
ing and  happy  one.  For  women,  therefore, 
there  is  surely  but  one  means  of  lastingly 
appearing  to  be  something  that  they  desire  ; 
and  that  is,  to  be  it.  Yet  it  is  harder, 
though  by  so  much  the  more  meritorious, 
for  them  to  be  spiritual,  good,  and  noble, 
since,  instead  of  reaping  recognition  for  it, 
they  are  often  obliged  to  see  exactly  the 
opposite  qualities  valued  and  sought.  A 
truly  noble  woman,  therefore,  stands  on  a 
higher  level  of  moral  perfection  than  the 
best  man. 

Furthermore,    what    is     generally    true 

of   humanity  is    especially    applicable    to 

1111 
women,  that  those  who  have  not  expen- 

99 


enced  trouble,  but  have^nly  been  fed  upon 
the  pleasures  of  life,  remain  superficial  and 
mediocre.  With  women  the  latter  experi- 
ence is  found  in  even  special  measure, 
because  their  whole  present  training,  in  the 
so-called  cultured  circles,  tends  to  give 
them  the  impression  that  a  finer  enjoyment 
of  life  is  the  real  aim  of  their  existence. 

From  this  conception  of  life  there  results 
a  nai've  and  thoughtless  egotism  which 
conceives  the  whole  world  to  be  only  a 
beautiful  meadow,  where  the  women  have 
all  the  flowers  to  gather  to  adorn  them- 
selves with  and  to  please  themselves 
with.  In  this  egotism  they  often  far 
surpass  men  in  selfishness ;  the  more  ami- 
able outer  side  of  this  naivete  may  not 
blind  us  to  this. 

The  character  of  women  can  very 
well  be  judged  from  their  treatment  of 
flowers.  A  girl  that  on  her  walk  pulls 
as  many  flowers  as  possible  for  herself  and 
has  no  desire  to  leave  any  behind  for 
others  has  a  tendency  to  greediness  and 
pleasure-seeking.  A  lady  who,  after  look- 
ing at  a  beautiful  flower  or  bouquet  for  a 
short  time,  will  permit  it  to  lie  and  wither, 
instead  of  putting  it  in  water  or  of  making 
some  poor  child  happy  with  it,  has  no  warm 
heart.  But  if  she  pulls  flowers  quite  to 
100 


pieces,  she  will  some  day  no  less  uncon- 
cernedly deal  with  men  who  have  put 
their  trust  in  her. 

It  is  naturally  still  worse  with  the  hearts 
of  those  tender  creatures  who  with  their 
fingers  crush  a  harmless  gnat  sunning  itself 
at  the  window,  or  purposely  tread  upon 
a  little  worm  or  beetle  crawling  over  their 
path.  It  is  well  to  keep  oneself  at  a  good  dis- 
tance from  them.  Likewise  from  all  those 
who  wear  conspicuous  dresses  ;  the  cloth- 
ing of  a  true  lady  should  never  attract 
attention,  either  by  being  too  striking  or 
too  plain. 

Women  do  rightly,  on  the  whole, 
when  they  act  with  warmth  and  feeling ; 
they  are  rarely  fitted  for  a  merely  intellec- 
tual companionship,  and  those  who  are,  are 
not  very  lovable,  as  a  rule,  and  have  no 
inward  peace.  Even  a  very  clever  woman 
brings  unqualified  happiness  only  to  a  man 
at  least  as  clever,  and  she  is  herself  never 
happy  if  she  has  the  constant  feeling  that 
she  far  surpasses  the  man.  Ardent  femi- 
nine natures  are  a  great  happiness  for  him 
who  understands  how  to  enjoy  their  com- 
panionship without  blame  ;  otherwise  they 
are  like  a  fire  that  diffuses  light  and  warmth 
indeed,  but  may  consume  their  own  house 

101 


and  the  houses  of  others.  Very  quiet 
women,  on  the  other  hand,  easily  grow  to 
be  somewhat  insipid. 

What  women  value  most  in  men  is 
power,  whose  complete  absence  they  never 
pardon.  Therefore  adorers  like  poor  Brack- 
enburg,  in  Goethe's  "  Egmont,"  never 
get  their  deserts  from  them ;  they  actually 
think  more  of  the  men  who  slight  them 
or  treat  them  badly  than  they  do  of  men 
who  are  weak. 

Most  unhappy  are  the  feelings  of  a 
noble  woman  when,  through  her  own  bad 
choice,  or  through  the  folly  of  her  relations, 
she  has  fallen  to  a  weakling  who  seeks 
compensation  for  his  unmanliness  in  the 
outer  world  by  a  constant  and  petty  mas- 
tery in  the  house.  Dante  would  have  had 
to  invent  yet  another  special  punishment  for 
these  house-tyrants,  against  whom  it  is 
just  the  best  women  that  are  defenceless, 
and  who  may  be  governed  only  by  a 
woman  of  strong  egotism. 

With  this,  we  have  come  to  the  question 
of  marriage.  The  best  relationship  with 
women  not  already  in  the  family  is  mar- 
riage, and  it  is  one  of  the  chief  causes  of  the 
deterioration  of  our  age  that  (and  in  large 
measure  on  account  of  the  pleasure-seeking 
102 


and  the  false  education  of  the  women  them- 
selves) marriage  is  made  difficult  to  a  large 
proportion  of  educated  men,  so  that  they 
do  not  marry  at  all,  or  do  not  marry  at  the 
right  age.  Indeed,  among  the  "civilized" 
nations,  it  has  actually  resulted  in  the  cir- 
cumstance, unfavorable  for  the  position  of 
women,  that  they  are  no  longer  valued 
for  their  own  sake,  but  only  for  what  they 
"bring  along"  with  them. 

Who  in  fact  could  wish  to  torment 
himself  with  cares  his  life  long,  just  to 
support  a  vain  creature  fond  of  dress  and 
pleasure,  while  he  might,  with  the  same 
means,  procure  a  far  pleasanter  mode  of 
life  ?  This  is  the  word  pretty  generally 
current  now  among  the  younger  lords  of 
creation,  who  have  none  too  much  of  the 
spirit  of  sacrifice. 

It  is  often  rather  doubtful  whether 
marriage  always  deserves  to  be  called  a 
"  divine  "  institution  under  present-day 
conditions,  when  the  husband  very  com- 
monly seeks  in  this  way  a  betterment  of 
his  financial  situation,  or,  if  he  belongs  to 
the  less  "  cultured  '"  classes,  seeks  a  slave 
to  do  his  work  without  pay,  while  the 
parents  of  the  wife  wish  to  secure,  in 
marriage,  a  life-insurance  policy  for  their 
daughter,  however  wretched  a  one  it  may 

103 


prove  to  be,  and  the  daughter  herself,  in 
the  momentary  triumph  of  this  social  pro- 
motion, forgets  the  sad  ensuing  loss  of  her 
rights.  It  is  one  of  the  saddest  yet  com- 
monest tragedies  to  see  a  fine,  highly 
educated  girl  in  the  almost  unlimited 
power  of  a  mediocre  young  man,  solely 
because  many  mothers  still  regard  it  as  a 
kind  of  shame  to  keep  their  daughters  un- 
married. 

We  can  understand  why  most  women 
are  glad  to  marry,  because  it  is  only  in  a 
good  marriage  that  they  have  the  oppor- 
tunity of  independently  unfolding  all  the 
powers  that  lie  within  them.  But  that  the 
selfish  ones,  who  know  how  to  put  them- 
selves at  the  right  time  upon  a  proper 
footing  of  defence,  have  often  a  better  lot 
than  the  good  wives,  who  lavish  a  vast 
amount  of  love,  fidelity,  self-sacrifice, 
thought,  and  vitality  upon  a  questionable 
man  of  whom  they  have  made  for  them- 
selves an  incorrect  picture  in  their  fancy — 
this  is  one  of  life's  most  melancholy  expe- 
riences, and  one  that  might  most  make  us 
doubt  God's  justice.  A  woman,  therefore, 
should  never  marry  entirely  below  her  sta- 
tion, never  marry  a  man  who  is  morally  not 
entirely  above  suspicion,  or  is  pettily  ego- 
tistic, or  is  not  a  man  of  thoroughly  good 
104 


disposition ;  nor,  as  a  rule,  should  she 
marry  out  of  her  country  and  nationality. 
But  for  men  who  are  seriously  struggling 
upward,  an  alliance  with  a  high-minded 
woman  from  the  better  ranks  of  life  is  the 
method  best  of  all  suited  to  get  quickly 
forward. 

It  will  always  be  disputed  whether  it  is 
better,  in  a  good  marriage,  to  seek  and  to 
find  ardent  love,  or  quiet  esteem  and  friend- 
ship. I  would  decide  for  the  latter,  as  a 
general  rule  ;  but — he  who  does  not  know 
the  former  knows  not  what  life  is. 

The  true  and  unselfish  companionship 
of  a  man  with  a  worthy  woman  of  his 
home  circle — wife,  mother,  sister,  daugh- 
ter, and  not  least,  grandmother  and  grand- 
daughter— undoubtedly  belongs  to  the 
highest,  the  tenderest,  the  purest  joys  of 
this  life,  and  brings  out  qualities  in  him 
that  otherwise  would  always  lie  fallow. 
A  marriage  is  not  by  a  long  way  always  to 
be  called  a  stroke  of  good  fortune,  but  an 
old  bachelor,  too,  is  never  the  man  that 
could  and  should  be  made  of  him. 


On  the  whole  do  not  seek  to  know  men 
by  relying  overmuch  on  theories.  The 
greater  part  of  that  knowledge  is  attained 

105 


through  one's  own  experiences,  mostly  sad 
ones.  Only,  resolve  to  experience  nothing 
twice  over.  They  who  do  so  are  the  truly 
wise  ;  not  those,  if  there  are  any  such,  who 
make  no  mistakes. 

Besides,  our  knowledge  of  men  must 
not  serve  merely  to  help  us  separate  the 
goats  from  the  sheep  and  henceforth  con- 
cern ourselves  only  with  the  latter  ;  but  it 
should  serve  to  keep  us  from  being  de- 
ceived, and  to  enable  us  to  work  for  the 
improvement  of  ourselves  and  of  all  with 
whom  our  lot  brings  us  in  touch,  with  a 
better  understanding  of  their  character. 
For  when  a  man  once  abandons  the  belief 
that  every  single  human  soul  has  an  infinite 
value  and  that  it  is  worth  any  trouble  taken 
to  save  it,  then  he  finds  himself  upon  an 
inclined  plane  on  which  he  gradually  slips 
back  again  into  complete  selfishness. 

The  final  word  as  to  the  knowledge  of 
men  must  be  —  love  to  all.  Love  alone 
enables  us  to  know  a  man  exactly  as  he  is, 
and  yet  not  to  flee  him.  To  know  men, 
without  love,  has  always  been  a  misfortune 
and  the  cause  of  the  profound  melancholy 
of  many  wise  men  in  all  ages ;  it  has 
driven  them  to  renounce  the  society  of 
their  fellows,  or  to  take  refuge  in  the  the- 
106 


ory  of  absolute  government.  For  there  are 
only  two  ways  of  dealing  with  men,  when 
one  has  once  learned  to  know  them — 
through  fear,  or  through  love.  All  inter- 
mediate methods  are  delusions. 

But  if  any  one  appeals  to  fear,  or  if  love 
is  to  any  one  only  lip-service,  let  him  hear 
Brother  Jacopone  da  Todi :  "  That  I  love 
my  neighbor  I  really  know  only  when, 
after  he  has  injured  me,  I  love  him  no 
less  than  before.  For  if  I  then  loved  him 
less,  I  should  thereby  prove  that,  before, 
it  was  not  he  I  loved,  but  myself." 


107 


IV.   WHAT   IS  CULTURE? 


IV.   WHAT   IS   CULTURE?1 

PROPHET  of  Israel 
of  the  latter  days  of 
the  Kings,  who  himself 
seems  to  have  been,  in 
a  way,  self-taught,  an- 
nounces to  his  nation  the 
oncoming  of  a  new  era  in 
about  the  following  words :  "  Behold,  the 
days  come,  saith  the  Lord  God,  that  I 
will  send  a  famine  in  the  land,  not  a 
famine  of  bread,  but  of  the  hearing  of 
the  truth.  In  that  day  shall  the  fair 
youths  and  maidens  faint,  who  now  are 
relying  upon  the  god  at  Dan  and  the 
way  of  Beer-sheba.  For  they  shall  so  fall 
therewith  that  they  shall  not  be  able  to 
rise  again."  What  Amos  meant  by  the 
god  at  Dan  and  the  "  way  of  Beer-sheba  " 
is  hardly  to  be  discovered  now  with  exact- 
ness, and  indeed,  for  our  purposes,  we 
may  leave  it  undetermined.  Only  thus 
much  is  clear  from  the  context,  that  they 
were  for  the  time  elements  of  culture 
whose  insufficiency  should  later  come  to 
light — as  actually  happened  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  Christian  era. 

1  Originally   an    address    before    an   association   of 
young  merchants. 

Ill 


Widely  recognized  phenomena  of  our 
own  days  fittingly  remind  us  again  of 
these  ancient,  half-forgotten  words. 

On  the  other  hand,  a  struggle  that  may 
almost  be  called  violent  is  passing  through 
the  broad  masses  of  the  nations.  They 
are  striving  to  win  culture  for  themselves 
as  quickly  as  possible,  so  that  they  may 
elevate  themselves  to  the  power  which, 
in  their  view,  goes  hand  in  hand  with 
this  culture,  or,  as  they  mostly  conceive 
it,  with  the  acquisition  of  certain  kinds 
of  knowledge. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  upper  circles 
of  the  classes  hitherto  known  as  cultured 
are  being  gripped  with  a  kind  of  despair 
over  the  already  attained  and  still  attain- 
able results  of  this  search  for  knowledge 
for  its  own  sake,  as  a  renowned  scientist 
has  already  plainly  expressed  with  his 
well-known  saying,  "  Ignoramus,  ignorabi- 
mus,"  and  as  is  becoming  actually  mani- 
fest in  the  ever-growing  specializing  of  the 
sciences.  For  this  specializing  means,  at 
bottom,  nothing  less  than  that  there  is  no 
universal  knowledge  any  more,  still  less 
a  universal  culture  which  comprehends  all 
that  men  have  achieved  and  thought;  it 
means  that  there  are  only  isolated  depart- 
ments of  knowledge,  behind  which  the 
112 


abyss  of  ignorance  yawns,  for  the  most 
learned  specialist,  no  less  than  for  the 
most  commonplace  layman. 

In  the  young  generation  of  the  civilized 
nations  which  is  growing  up  under  such 
auspices,  there  is  prevailing  a  certain  physi- 
cal and  mental  weariness,  which  makes 
one  seriously  doubt  whether  the  whole 
of  modern  education  must  not  be  on  the 
wrong  track  if,  instead  of  producing  men- 
tal and  physical  power  and  joy  in  the 
lifelong  acquisition  of  new  and  newer 
knowledge,  it  only  prematurely  dulls  and 
destroys  all  these  capacities,  and  if  it  is 
bringing  on  a  too  weakly  organized  and 
nervous  race  which  would  as  little  prove 
a  match  for  the  onset  of  some  horde  of 
healthy  barbarians  as  did,  once  upon  a  time, 
the  Roman  or  Greek  cosmopolitan  culture, 
outwardly  brilliant,  but  likewise  under- 
mined by  just  such  over-civilization  as  ours. 

With  this,  we  have  arrived  at  once  at 
the  heart  of  our  question.  By  culture  we 
must  understand  something  greater,  some- 
thing other  than  knowledge,  or  learned- 
ness  in  special  subjects,  if  it  is  at  all  to  be 
something  beneficial  and  desirable.  Rela- 
tively speaking,  the  most  striking  result 
of  general  culture  must  be  the  healthy 
and  vigorous  development  of  every  man's 

113  ' 


personality  into  a  full  and  rounded  human 
life,  inwardly  at  peace.  Otherwise  it  will 
be  of  no  very  definite  value,  either  to 
himself  or  to  his  state. 

If  it  does  not  effect  this  it  does  not 
justify  the  hopes  that  have,  for  so  long  a 
time,  been  set  upon  it,  and  there  may 
stand  before  us  a  time  such  as  humanity 
has  already  more  than  once  experienced, 
when  the  most  highly  civilized  peoples 
have  been  overpowered  by  barbarians,  sim- 
ply by  virtue  of  greater  physical  strength 
and  greater  mental  freshness  and  originality, 
and  when  too  delicately  constituted  repub- 
lics have  not  been  in  a  condition  to  with- 
stand the  momentum  of  such  onslaughts, 
directed  by  some  single  powerful  will. 

Therefore  the  question  "  What  is  Cul- 
ture ? "  is  a  question  of  the  life  of  our 
whole  present  race,  as  well  as,  in  a  special 
degree,  of  our  native  land  and  the  nature 
of  its  government. 

i 

By  this  very  ambiguous  and  therefore 
often  misunderstood  word  "  culture "  we 
must  understand  ourselves  to  mean  an 
evolving  from  an  originally  formless,  rough 
condition  into  a  condition  in  which  the 
development  into  the  best  of  which  the 
114 


material  is  capable  is  completed,  or  at 
least  is  in  the  process  of  unfolding  without 
hindrance. 

Every  man  at  the  beginning  is  a  rough 
block  that  can  only  be  fashioned  into  a 
true  human  form  and  a  true  work  of  art 
partly  by  the  formative  power  of  life  itself 
with  its  manifold  influences,  and  partly  by 
the  hand  and  sagacity  of  men.  And  as  an 
unskilful  sculptor  may  so  misshape  and 
spoil  a  stone  intrusted  to  him  that  no 
real  work  of  art  can  any  longer  be  made 
of  it,  or  may  carve  it  so  delicately  that  it 
loses  the  massiveness  and  strength  nec- 
essary to  resist  all  outer  influences,  so  also, 
in  the  art  of  human  culture,  we  often 
speak  from  painful  experience  of  a  man's 
culture  as  neglected,  or  distorted,  or  too 
excessive  and  refined. 

In  true  culture  (one  that  does  not  in- 
jure but  benefits  men),  three  things  seem 
to  be  essential :  the  conquering  of  natural 
sensuality  and  natural  selfishness  through 
higher  interests,  the  wholesome  and  sym- 
metrical training  of  the  physical  and  mental 
faculties,  and  a  correct  philosophical  and 
religious  conception  of  life.  Where  one 
of  these  three  is  lacking,  there  is  a  drying 
up  in  the  man  of  something  that  had  been 
capable  of  a  better  development. 

"5 


i.  The  final  goal  of  all  true  culture  is 
the  liberation  of  man  from  the  "  sensual 
gravitation  "  which  every  one  experiences 
in  himself,  and  from  the  selfishness  which, 
though  it  rests  in  the  final  analysis  upon 
man's  impulse  to  self-preservation,  stands 
nevertheless  in  opposition  to  the  purpose 
of  his  life.  Essentially  as  a  creature  of 
the  senses  man  begins  his  course  in  this 
world,  essentially  as  a  creature  of  the 
spirit  he  should  finish  it  here,  and,  as 
we  hope,  continue  it  in  another  world 
under  more  favorable  conditions.  Thus 
there  lies  already  in  his  nature  a  conflict 
between  that  which  is  and  therefore  would 
naturally  like  to  persist,  and  that  which  is 
undoubtedly  demanded  by  his  deepest  and 
best  feelings  and  which  is  meant  to  grow 
and  develop.  If  he  does  not  stay  as  he 
is,  then  the  ground  seems  at  times  to  give 
way  under  his  feet ;  but  if  he  does  stay  as 
he  is,  then  his  better  self  is  always  griev- 
ously reproving  him,  and  saying  that  he 
is  not  fulfilling  his  duty  and  is  not  be- 
coming what  he  could  and  should  become. 
This  is  the  battle  that  every  man  begins 
with  himself  as  soon  as  he  comes  to  con- 
sciousness about  himself,  and  in  this  battle 
he  must  at  any  cost  carry  off  the  victory. 

All  inward  dissatisfaction  springs  from 
116 


sensuality  or  selfishness  ;  these  two  never 
fail  to  show  themselves  as  the  primal  causes, 
when  the  matter  is  run  to  the  ground. 
Any  genuine  happiness  is  not  conceivable 
where  the  spiritual  nature  has  not  gained 
the  day  over  the  sensual,  and  where  a 
disposition  toward  liberality,  humanity, 
and  kindliness  has  not  won  the  victory 
over  a  disposition  to  narrow  selfishness  — 
a  victory  already  decided  in  one's  inner- 
most tendency,  and,  as  a  matter  of  prac- 
tical life,  to  be  daily  gained  anew. 

Whoever  has  not  been  able  thus  to 
subdue  himself  will  never  be  a  match  for 
the  world  around  him,  which  fights  him 
with  the  same  though  thousand  fold  greater 
powers  of  selfishness.  All  that  is  left  for 
him  is  to  defend  himself  in  this  struggle 
for  existence  by  continually  injuring  and 
destroying  others  and  by  uniting  himself 
with  others  into  groups  with  mutual  inter- 
ests, groups  that  are  likewise  of  a  purely 
selfish  nature. 

To  try  to  suppress  this  struggle  for 
existence  which  now  threatens  to  destroy 
all  the  nobility  that  is  in  man  and  to  make 
us  like  beasts  of  prey,  is  the  chiefest  task 
of  all  the  truly  cultured  men  of  our  time. 

They  must  first  show  by  their  own  ex- 
ample that  this  struggle  is  not  necessary, 

117 


and  that  there  is  a  way  out  of  the  labyrinths 
of  this  life  other  than  the  sad  one  of  who 
shall  be  strongest  in  his  selfishness.  After 
all,  the  man  who  proves  strongest  in  this 
struggle,  even  in  the  most  favorable  case, 
only  makes  the  existence  of  many  fellow- 
men  the  heavier,  and  his  own  better  self, 
besides,  has  suffered  harm. 

The  first  step  is,  that  one  shall  no 
longer  be  recognized  as  a  truly  cultured 
man  who  has  any  trace  of  such  a  concep- 
tion of  life.  And  it  must  and  will  come  to 
that,  before  long,  in  our  civilized  states. 
On  the  one  hand,  selfish  solicitude  for 
self  and  as  much  as  possible  of  sensual 
enjoyment  during  a  short  life  —  on  the 
other,  human  kindness,  care  for  others, 
mental  advancement,  and  the  development 
of  the  nobler  powers  of  the  soul :  these 
are  the  two  great  armies  which  now  stand 
over  against  each  other,  ready  for  battle, 
and  in  one  or  the  other  you  will  be  obliged 
to  take  your  place. 

2.  The  second  point  is  the  proper  and 
healthy  physical  and  mental  development 
of  all  our  faculties,  in  the  interest  of  these 
higher  aims.  We  are  not  to  live  with  this 
better  conception  of  life  in  cloisters  or 
studies,  but  as  far  as  possible  to  bring  it 
118 


into  use  in  our  ordinary  life  and  in  every 
calling  —  but  not,  of  course,  in  any  calling 
that  stands  in  radical  opposition  to  this 
better  conception  of  life. 

Here  is  the  point  where  oftentimes  a 
somewhat  morbid  and  exaggerated  philo- 
sophical, religious,  or  scientific  tendency 
stands  likewise  opposed  to  true  culture. 
There  is  no  profit  in  a  philosophy  that 
does  not  hold  its  own  in  the  full  current 
of  life,  and  there  is  little  help  in  a  religion 
which  exists  only  in  the  church  on  Sun- 
days and  has  no  value  in  the  market  or  in 
business.  And  even  knowledge,  in  itself, 
has  no  great  worth  if  it  does  not  serve, 
somehow,  to  build  up  a  more  worthy  kind 
of  life  for  oneself  or  for  others. 

In  a  sickly,  overfatigued  body,  with 
nerves  continually  overexcited,  no  quite 
healthy  soul  can  live  and  work  unimpeded. 
It  is  one  of  the  chief  mistakes  in  the  cul- 
ture of  our  day  that  a  kind  of  misunder- 
standing has  arisen  between  body  and  mind, 
whereby  the  body  is  harmed  directly  and, 
through  the  body,  the  mind.  Besides,  our 
whole  modern  education  is  much  more 
directed  toward  the  mechanical  acquisition 
of  things  to  be  remembered  than  to  the 
attainment  of  real  convictions  and  of  true 
knowledge. 


OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 


3-  But  all  these  things,  the  pursuit  of 
ideals,  the  search  for  true  knowledge,  and 
the  maintenance  of  bodily  tone,  do  not 
yet  help  a  man  toward  true  culture,  unless 
they  rest  upon  the  conviction  of  the  ex- 
istence of  a  transcendental  world  whose 
forces  can  effectively  come  to  his  help. 
His  sensual  tendency  and  his  natural  self- 
ishness are  far  too  strong  for  him  to  subdue 
them  wholly  by  his  own  expedients  and 
without  the  help  of  such  a  Power  residing 
outside  himself.  And  the  motives  for  do- 
ing it  are  too  weak.  What  indeed  should 
impel  him  to  fight  a  hard  and  at  first 
apparently  almost  fruitless  battle  with  him- 
self and  the  surrounding  world  his  life 
long,  if  this  life  is  only  a  transitory  animal 
existence  with  no  further  destination  ? 

The  strength  of  a  merely  natural  nobility, 
which  for  a  time,  perhaps,  may  lift  itself 
above  these  things,  does  not,  under  all 
circumstances,  hold  out  in  the  presence  of 
this  conception  of  life,  but  easily  despairs 
of  itself  when  trials,  continuing  and  great, 
draw  nigh.  There  must  therefore  be  the 
introduction  into  human  existence  of  a 
power  which  is  mightier  than  all  a  man's 
natural  forces  and  which  makes  it  possible 
for  him  to  master  himself  and  no  longer 
to  fear  all  external  evils,  in  comparison 
1 20 


with  the  evil  of  high  treason  to  his  better 
self. 

That  there  is  such  a  power,  which  one 
can  not  indeed  logically  prove,  but  which 
he  can  put  to  the  test  and  himself  experi- 
ence,—  this  is  the  mysterious  truth  of 
religion ;  and  it  would  be  much  less  of  a 
mystery  if  all  men,  if  but  once  in  their  life, 
would  venture  the  trial  whether  there  is 
such  a  power.  To  be  sure,  if  any  one  does 
not  want  to  let  quite  go  of  his  pleasure- 
seeking  and  selfishness,  or  does  not  alto- 
gether yet  desire  to  attain,  at  any  cost,  to 
something  better  than  the  ordinary  life, 
then,  in  spite  of  his  trial,  he  will  not  have 
a  perfect  experience  of  this  power,  and  in 
that  case  the  mere  outward  profession  of 
a  religion  does  not  help  him  much.  He 
remains  on  the  whole  as  he  is,  even  though 
he  go  to  church  every  day. 

But  if  he  has  this  will,  then  he  receives 
this  power,  then  he  infallibly  becomes  an- 
other man,  to  such  a  degree  that  one  may 
truthfully  call  it  a  new  birth.  Then  only 
will  all  his  natural  gifts  and  knowledge 
become  really  alive  in  him  and  productive 
for  the  welfare  of  himself  and  others. 

The  highest  step  is  complete  self-re- 
nunciation, in  which  a  man  is  only  the 
receptacle  of  divine  thoughts  and  impulses  ; 

121 


but  it  is  very  dangerous  to  work  oneself 
into  such  a  condition  by  the  fantasy,  before 
it  comes  of  itself  and  is  really  at  hand. 
The  main  thing  in  religion  is  not  its  im- 
mediate perfect  attainment,  but  that  every 
one  who  will  may  enter  on  the  way  and 
pass  from  a  joyless  existence  to  a  gradually 
ascending  life. 

This  is  the  way  to  true  culture,  and 
every  one  must  try  to  travel  it  by  himself. 
It  can  not  be  taught ;  it  can  only  be  shown. 

The  evidence  that  one  has  true  culture 
is,  first,  a  gradually  increasing  mental 
health  and  power,  then  a  certain  higher 
sagacity  that  comes  in,  and  finally  a  pecul- 
iar, larger  caliber  of  spirit  which  one  can 
bring  about  in  no  other  way,  which  one 
can  not  imitate,  and  which  really  forms 
the  chief  element  in  culture.  Yet  these 
thoroughly  cultured  men  are,  for  all  that, 
entirely  natural  human  beings,  but  free 
from  all  pretence  and  vanity ;  free  also 
from  all  struggling,  from  all  seeking  for 
life's  good  things,  on  which  human  happi- 
ness does  not  have  to  depend,  and  in 
whose  incessant  pursuit  men  only  lose 
their  souls  ;  free  from  all  unhealthy  pessi- 
mism, or  monkish  seclusion ;  free  from 
fear  or  nervousness  or  impatience ;  cheer- 

122 


ful  and  quiet  in  the  innermost  centre  of 
their  being,  and  continuing  in  their  mental 
and  spiritual  soundness  up  to  the  highest 
goal  of  human  life.  "  As  their  days,  so 
is  their  strength,"  as  the  Old  Testament 
says  with  great  beauty  and  truth. 

The  highest  imaginable  degree  of  this 
culture  is  a  complete  devotion  to  all  that 
is  good  and  great,  a  devotion  that  no  sort 
of  trouble  any  longer  clouds,  or  can  cloud  ; 
it  is  that  condition  of  the  soul,  mentally 
conceivable  but  seemingly  rarely  attained, 
in  which  there  is  no  longer  any  battle 
with  the  sensual  and  the  transitory,  and 
the  struggle  of  nature  against  the  law  of 
the  spirit  is  completely  at  end. 

This  is  that  condition  of  perfection 
which  we  ascribe,  in  its  consummate  devel- 
opment, to  the  Divine  Being  alone,  but 
toward  which  we  also  are  called  to  strive ; 
and  the  gradual  winning  of  all  men  to  this 
goal  is  the  task  in  particular  of  all  true 
education,  and  looked  at  in  the  whole,  it 
is  the  end  to  which  all  history  is  moving. 

II 

No  false  culture  nor  half-culture  is 
therefore  to  be  compared  with  this  true 
culture,  which  is  unmistakable  in  its 

123 


effects  upon  the  whole  nature  of  men, 
and  upon  their  manner  of  intercourse  with 
others.  Even  in  the  very  simple  relations 
of  life  it  will  always  reveal  itself  by  a 
certain  greatness  of  spirit  it  confers,  a 
spirit  that  distinguishes  its  possessor  from 
the  ordinary  man  in  the  like  ranks  of  life. 
And  along  with  this  there  is  a  quiet  sense 
of  peace  with  oneself  and  with  others  such 
as  no  other  philosophy  of  life  can  assure, 
and  which,  by  its  contagious  serenity,  is 
apparent  to  every  one  who  has  ever  been 
with  such  people. 

However,  it  is  not  wholly  unneces- 
sary, particularly  at  the  present  time,  to 
set  down  the  chief  characteristics  of  a 
false  or  insufficient  culture,  characteristics 
which  one  meets  very  often  and  can  not 
help  but  notice.  They  are  particularly  the 
following : 

i.  Great  extravagance  in  living.  A 
man  of  genuine  culture  will  never  set  a 
very  high  value  either  upon  his  outward 
personal  appearance,  or  upon  where  he 
lives,  or  what  he  eats  and  drinks,  or  the 
like  things :  and  so  he  will  carefully  avoid 
luxury,  as  improper  for  himself  and  unjust 
toward  others.  Excessive  finery,  golden 
rings  on  all  the  fingers,  watch  chains  with 
124 


which  one  might,  if  necessary,  tie  a  calf, 
houses  in  which  one  can  not  move  for  the 
furniture,  banquets  at  which  one  risks 
undermining  even  a  robust  constitution 
—  these  are  all  quite  sure  signs  of  a  lack 
of  culture  and  things  that  one  must 
guard  against.  For  whoever  has  intelli- 
gence sees  through  all  this  ;  it  is  only  the 
fools  who  are  blinded  by  it.  The  surest 
mark  of  culture  in  all  these  things  is  a 
certain  noble,  easy  simplicity  in  one's 
whole  personal  appearance  and  manner 
of  life. 

The  love  of  display  and  pleasure  is 
always  a  sign  of  lacking  culture,  and 
culture  alone  can  thoroughly  guard  against 
it.  Even  a  general  raising  of  the  standard 
of  life  in  a  country  is  desirable  only  in  so 
far  as  a  rough,  half-animal,  unworthy  mode 
of  living  is  by  its  means  done  away  with  ; 
otherwise  a  continual  increase  in  men's 
needs  is  a  misfortune  for  any  country,  and 
the  cultured  classes  must  earnestly  strive 
against  it  and  set  a  better  example.  A 
noble  simplicity  of  living  has  also  the  ad- 
vantage that  it  can  always  remain  the  same 
under  any  circumstances,  while  people 
inclined  to  luxury  usually  have  two  modes 
of  living,  one  before  people,  and  the  other 
for  themselves. 

125 


2.  An  external,  but  also  very  easily 
recognizable  and  characteristic  mark  of 
culture  is  the  possession  or  absence  of 
books ;  especially  with  persons  who  have 
the  most  ample  means  of  procuring  -them. 
A  fine  lady  who  reads  a  soiled  volume 
from  a  lending  library  you  may  safely  set 
down  as  but  half-cultured  at  best,  and  if 
she  slips  an  embroidered  cover  over  the 
volume,  it  does  not  remedy  the  matter  ; 
it  only  shows  that  she  is  conscious  of  her 
fault.  An  elegant  home  in  which  but  a 
dozen  books  stand  unread  on  an  orna- 
mental whatnot  you  may  quietly  regard 
as  uncultured,  with  all  its  inmates  ;  espe- 
cially if,  as  usual,  the  books  are  only 
novels. 

Much  reading  still  remains,  in  our  day 
as  always,  a  necessity  of  general  culture. 
Of  a  thoroughly  cultured  man  one  can 
properly  require  that  in  the  course  of  a 
moderately  long  life  he  shall  have  read  all 
of  the  very  best  in  literature,  and  shall 
have  gained,  besides,  a  tolerably  general 
and  correct  idea  of  all  the  branches  of 
human  knowledge,  so  that  "  nothing  of 
human  is  to  him  quite  alien." 

But  if  you  ask  how  one  can  get  time  for 
this,  outside  of  one's  business  or  occupa- 
tion, the  answer  is  this  :  Break  away  from  all 
126 


unnecessary  things,  from  the  hotel,  from 
societies,  clubs,  and  social  pleasures,  from 
the  useless  reading  of  a  great  portion  of 
the  newspapers,  from  the  theatre,  where 
you  learn  little  that  is  worth  knowing  in 
these  days,  from  the  too  frequent  concerts, 
from  skating  for  whole  afternoons,  and 
from  much  else  besides  that  every  one  can 
easily  charge  against  himself  as  his  special 
manner  of  squandering  time.  One  can  not 
be  very  cultured  and  at  the  same  time 
enjoy  all  the  possible  pleasures  going. 

But,  if  necessary,  you  may  even  break 
away  somewhat  from  business.  That  pays, 
and  you  will  soon  see  what  a  difference 
there  is,  even  as  regards  business  success, 
between  a  cultured  merchant  and  a  merely 
clever  manager. 

3.  A  further  sign  of  defective  culture 
is  a  loud,  rude  nature  :  talking  very  loud, 
in  public  localities,  in  cars,  in  restaurants, 
etc. ;  acting  as  if  one  were  the  only  person 
there ;  and  conducting  oneself  discourte- 
ously in  places  where  many  men  gather. 
Our  age  is  less  cultured  in  this  respect 
than  some  earlier  ones  have  been. 

On  the  same  footing  stands  everything 
that  savors  of  advertising  and  boasting, 
all  showy  pretence  and  braggadocio.  A 

127 


merchant,  for  example,  who  greatly  exag- 
gerates the  importance  of  his  business,  or 
puts  very  boastful  advertisements  in  the 
papers ;  or  a  lady  who  wears  a  silk  dress 
without  quite  immaculate  undergarments — 
those  surely  you  would  not  take  for  people 
of  sufficient  culture. 

4.  Work  also  belongs  to  culture.  It  is 
not  only  a  quite  indispensable  means  of 
attaining  thereto,  but  idleness,  even  if  one 
can  "  afford  "  it,  is  always  the  mark  of  a 
disposition  with  low  ideals ;  and  that  is 
directly  opposed  to  culture.  Such  a  man 
will  seek  his  pleasure  in  something  else, 
something  less  fine,  or  will  possess  a  foolish 
pride  in  not  being  obliged  to  work,  or 
finally  he  is  a  fellow  of  coarse  sensibilities 
to  whom  it  is  a  matter  of  indifference 
whether  others  perish  by  his  side  whom 
he  could  have  helped  by  his  exertions. 

An  idler  by  profession  is  therefore 
surely  a  man  without  ideals  and  without 
real  culture,  however  elegant  may  be  the 
external  forms  of  culture  he  has  gathered 
round  him.  They  are  empty  forms  with- 
out real  substance,  and  every  man  of 
better  culture  is  bound  not  to  allow  him- 
self to  be  deceived  thereby  and  not  to 
respect  such  people. 
128 


5»  But  not  much  less  harmful  is  the 
inordinate  passion  for  work.  When  it  is 
voluntary,  it  nearly  always  springs  from 
ambition  or  greed,  two  of  the  worst  enemies 
of  true  culture  ;  they  always  show  that  one 
sets  the  highest  value  upon  something  else 
than  culture.  Or  this  passion  for  work  is 
only  a  bad  habit  and  the  imitation  of  a  bad 
example,  or  finally  it  may  spring  from  a 
want  of  inner  peace  and  control,  which  are 
themselves  the  fruit  of  culture. 

Whoever  works  on  Sundays  just  the 
same  as  on  week-days,  when  he  is  not 
compelled  to,  you  may  quietly  consider  as 
little  cultured  as  the  man  who  does  nothing 
any  day. 

6.  A  very  necessary  element  in  culture 
is  an  absolute  trustworthiness  and  an  up- 
right conduct  in  all  money-matters.  To 
the  cultured  man  it  is  not  permitted  to  dis- 
play prodigality,  or  an  aristocratic  con- 
tempt for  money ;  a  disposition  like  that 
always  indicates  lack  of  culture,  and  is 
unjust  toward  one's  needy  fellow-men,  be- 
sides being  mostly  pretence.  Nor  is  it  per- 
mitted him,  on  the  other  hand,  to  show 
undue  parsimony,  nor  dishonesty  even 
in  the  smallest  particulars.  On  this  point, 
the  Scriptures  say  quite  truly :  "He  that 
K  129 


is  faithful  in  a  very  little  is  faithful  also 
in  much/' 

An  absolutely  rightful  employment  of 
money,  with  the  strictest  honesty,  with 
complete  disregard  for  money  as  the  goal 
of  life,  and  yet  with  a  proper  valuation  of 
it  as  the  means  of  attaining  higher  ends,  is 
perhaps  the  surest  of  all  signs  of  a  man  of 
genuine  culture ;  as  the  chase  after  gains 
and  the  worship  of  money  most  surely  be- 
trays the  uncultured  man. 

7.  Another  sufficient  indication  of 
defective  culture  is  arrogance  toward  in- 
feriors or  toward  those  who  are  poorer 
off,  and  this  is  usually  combined  with 
subservience  toward  superiors  and  toward 
the  wealthy.  This  is  the  special  charac- 
teristic of  parvenus  who  spring  from  un- 
cultured surroundings.  A  man  of  the  best 
culture  will  always  be  polite  and  friendly, 
but  the  more  so,  the  more  he  has  to  do 
with  those  who  stand  below  him,  with  the 
dependent  or  the  oppressed ;  and  the  less 
so,  even  to  the  bare  edge  of  politeness,  the 
more  he  has  to  do  with  some  one  who 
makes  pretensions,  or  wants  to  treat  him 
as  an  inferior.  To  show  deep  respect  for 
the  mere  wealth  of  another  is,  as  said  be- 
fore, the  most  unmistakable  mark  of  a 
130 


man  completely  lacking  in  any  culture  of 
his  own. 

8.  There  are  still  a  number  of  minor 
signs  of  lack  of  culture,  which  may,  how- 
ever, be  in  part  only  bad  habits  or  the  result 
of  defective  bringing  up ;  they  do  not  always 
point  conclusively  to  a  general  lack  of  cul- 
ture. Among  these  minor  signs  one  may 
rightly  reckon :  much  talking  about  one- 
self; gossip  and  scandal  over  the  personal 
affairs  of  others ;  a  great  tendency  to 
talkativeness  on  all  occasions ;  a  hasty, 
uncertain,  violent  temperament ;  making 
many  excuses  for  oneself  where  it  is  not 
necessary  or  has  already  been  done ;  to 
accuse  or  disparage  oneself  in  the  hope 
that  others  will  then  assert  the  contrary ; 
a  too-zealous  officiousness ;  or  a  too-effu- 
sive politeness. 

The  thoroughly  fine  aristocratic  temper- 
ament, such  as  the  English  especially 
prefer,  demands  a  very  great  self-possession 
and  preciseness ;  but  this  can  easily  de- 
generate into  indifference  and  coldness, 
and  is  then  a  fault.  Enthusiasm  and  eager- 
ness for  whatever  is  good  a  cultured  man 
always  possesses ;  where  this  is  lacking, 
there  is  also  a  lack  of  true  culture,  in  spite 
of  fine  pretences. 


But  this  is  also  certain :  when  the 
enthusiasm  is  genuine  and  is  not  merely 
manufactured  or  the  zeal  of  a  beginner  in 
the  noble  art  of  life,  then  it  will  never  be 
too  forward  and  loud  in  expressing  itself. 
A  noisy  virtue  is  always  a  little  suspicious, 
or  at  least  is  still  in  its  infancy. 

Culture,  therefore,  is  essentially  the 
gradual  development  of  inner  power  tow- 
ard what  is  right  and  true,  with  the  pur- 
pose of  elevating  and  liberating  one's  own 
higher  nature  from  the  bonds  of  the 
ordinary  animal  sensuality  with  which  it 
came  into  the  world,  and  of  training  it  up 
to  a  higher  level  of  life  in  complete  sound- 
ness of  mind  and  body.  Wherever  it  does 
not  do  this,  it  is  of  very  subordinate  value  ; 
and  this  it  must  always  above  all  things  do 
in  the  so-called  cultured  classes,  for  whom 
this  is  a  primal  duty. 

It  noway  suffices  to  be  always  talking  of 
the  "  elevation  of  the  lower  classes,"  who 
are  often  superior  now  to  the  upper  in 
particular  elements  of  true  culture.  The 
chief  need  of  our  present  day  is  much 
rather  the  vigorous  rehabilitation  of  this 
upper  class,  which  is  deeply  sunk  in 
pleasure-seeking  and  the  materialistic  con- 
ception of  things,  and  has  turned  aside 
from  the  higher  ends  of  life. 
132 


Ill 

Now  if  you  should  resolve  to  try  in  this 
manner  to  attain  to  true  culture,  you  must 
have  great  patience  with  yourself.  It  is 
not  the  matter  of  a  single  day  or  of  a 
single  resolution,  although  a  great  part  is 
played  by  making,  once  for  all,  a  firm  and 
binding  resolve,  to  which  one  always  comes 
back  again  as  often  as  one  has  in  some 
particular  departed  from  it. 

True  culture,  like  true  virtue  in  the 
main,  is  a  matter  of  growth.  By  degrees 
it  grows  in  strength  and  insight,  but  can 
not  be  suddenly  and  forcibly  won  by  any 
kind  of  magic  process  ;  one  must  make 
some  definite  beginning  and  then  persevere 
in  it  for  life.  But  this  is  the  only  true 
purpose  of  living,  never  to  be  laid  aside, 
and  the  only  outcome  of  life  wholly  to  be 
wished. 

A  beginning  can  be  made  in  different 
ways :  in  a  purely  practical  way  by  the 
acquisition  of  good  habits  ;  or  philosophi- 
cally, by  meditating  upon,  and  coining  to 
know,  and  discriminating  between,  the 
true  and  the  untrue  in  the  conduct  of  life ; 
or,  through  religion,  at  once  seeking  the 
infinite  and  the  power  that  thence  springs. 
The  easiest  way  is  undoubtedly  the  last, 

133 


and  to  this,  even  though  one  takes  the 
other  ways,  one  is  finally  led.  For  the  se- 
cret of  true  culture,  its  beginning  and  its 
real  key,  lies  in  the  conquering  of  selfish- 
ness and  especially  of  the  inordinate  desire 
for  pleasure.  Thus  it  comes  about  that 
often  a  very  simple  man,  who  possesses 
little  knowlege  and  has  had  little  contact 
with  so-called  good  society,  is  nevertheless 
more  truly  cultured  than  some  aristocratic 
or  learned  gentleman.  He  has  the  real  es- 
sentials of  culture  before  they  have,  and 
has  taken  the  easiest  way  to  acquire  it. 

Only  when  a  man  is  no  longer  constantly 
busied  about  himself  and  no  longer  thinks 
of  himself  alone  does  he  receive  his  free- 
dom of  spirit  and  the  full  use  of  the  forces 
that  lie  in  his  mental  and  spiritual  power. 
The  spirit,  then  for  the  first,  becomes  in 
some  sort  free  from  an  occupation  not 
worthy  of  itself,  and  becomes  capable  of 
taking  up  and  quietly  working  at  things 
which  otherwise  had  remained  forever  con- 
cealed under  personal  cares  and  pleasures. 

To  be  sure  —  and  this  also  must  be  said 
— these  things  are  hard  so  long  as  the 
youthful  man  is  in  the  full  tide  of  his 
physical  and  mental  unfolding.  Such  young 
people  as  have  already  attained  to  these 
things  very  early  in  life  usually  do  not 

IJ4 


live  very  long.  It  appears  that  man,  like 
the  animal,  and  like  the  plant  before  it 
bears  fruit,  needs  a  time  of  self-seeking 
activity,  in  order  first  to  obtain  a  sufficient 
growth  and  strength  as  a  natural  creature. 
In  the  case  of  man,  however,  there  surely 
and  naturally  comes  a  moment  when  an 
exclusive  or  preeminent  occupation  about 
one's  own  self  becomes  unnatural,  and  in 
every  larger  nature — and,  it  may  perhaps 
be  said,  in  every  existence  at  all  worthy  of 
men  —  there  comes  the  impulse  to  free  one- 
self from  oneself  and  to  live  for  an  idea. 

This  is  the  most  decisive  moment  of 
existence.  It  is,  with  some  men,  compar- 
able to  a  sudden,  violent  death,  and  a  new 
birth  to  another  life.  With  others,  it  is 
more  like  the  gradual  and  quiet  sinking  of 
the  former  things  into  slumber,  and  the 
awakening  and  slow  fashioning  of  a  new 
nature. 

But  if  this  change  has  once  taken  place, 
in  one  way  or  the  other,  then  all  the  real 
questions  of  human  existence  appear  in 
another  light,  clear  and  solved. 

But  if  this  change  does  not  take  place 
in  a  man  who  is  not  wholly  animal  in  his 
nature,  then  there  always  stays  with  him 
a  never-quieted  thirst  for  such  a  change ; 
and  likewise  a  feeling  of  guilt,  which  clearly 


says  to  him  that  he  could  and  should  have 
become  something  better,  a  voice  within 
him  he  can  not  drown,  however  great  his 
seeming  success. 

IV 

With  this  we  have  also  solved  the  last 
question  you  will  put :  "  What  shall  we 
get  out  of  it  ?  What  real  gain  has  a  man 
from  true  culture  ? "  To  this  is  to  be  an- 
swered that  every  great  inward  advance- 
ment a  man  makes  rests  first  upon  a 
faith.  He  must  forsake  something  he 
knows,  and  seek  something  toward  which 
only  a  presentiment  is  leading  him,  some- 
thing he  can  not  understand  yet  fully, 
because  the  capacity  is  for  the  present 
lacking. 

But  if  he  possesses  the  courage  to 
will  it,  he  attains  it;  and  of  those  who 
have  attained  this  goal,  not  one  has  yet 
found  the  cost  too  high,  or  the  toil  too 
hard. 

The  reward  of  virtue  in  this  world  is 
just  this,  that  virtue  is,  and  that  it  can 
be  overcome  by  no  power  of  the  world, 
but  itself  is  the  only  real  power  and  force 
that  will  completely  fill  life  full  and 
satisfy. 

136 


Tennyson  has  expressed  this  very  beau- 
tifully in  his  poem  "  Wages  "  : 

"Glory  of 'warrior ,  glory  of  orator,  glory  of  song, 
Paid  with  a  voice  flying  by  to  be  lost  on  an 

endless  sea — 
Glory  of  Virtue,  to  fight,  to  struggle,  to  right'  the 

wrong — 
Nay,  but  she  aim'd  not  at  glory,  no  lover  of 

glory  she : 
Give  her  the  glory  of  going  on,  and  still  to  be. 

"  The  wages  of  sin  is  death :    if  the  wages  of 

Virtue  be  dust, 
Would  she  have  heart  to  endure  for  the  life  of 

the  worm  and  the  fly  ? 
She  desires  no  isles  of  the  blest,  no  quiet  seats  of 

the  just, 
To  rest  in  a  golden  grove,  or  to  bask  in  a 

summer  sky : 
Give  her  the  wages  of  going  on,  and  not  to  die." 

It  is  therefore,  in  the  judgment  of  the 
best  even  of  our  own  day,  fully  worth  the 
trouble  to  strive  for  truie  culture,  and  all 
attain  who  really  desire — rich  or  poor, 
learned  or  unlearned.  Indeed,  what  Christ 
first  said  for  his  own  generation  is  also  very 
appropriate  for  ours,  that  simple  souls  and 
modest  lives  stand  much  more  intimately 
near  to  true  culture,  and  on  the  way  to  it 
do  not  meet  so  many  and  so  great  hin- 

137 


drances  as  do  the  wise  and  the  prudent,  and 
especially  the  rich,  who  must  first  strip  off 
infinitely  many  prejudices  and  attachments 
to  outward  things,  all  of  which  are  irrecon- 
cilable with  true  culture. 

It  is  therefore  harder  for  some  and  easier 
for  others  to  attain  to  culture,  but  for  none 
impossible, save  those  whose  mind  is  wholly 
bound  up  with  material  things,  and  are 
satisfied  besides  with  a  merely  external 
culture  that  is  rather  form  and  show  than 
reality,  however  much  it  may  claim  to  be 
real. 

An  ancient  Chinese  philosopher  has 
already  expressed  this  very  well  in  the 
following  verses,  somewhat  naively  trans- 
lated : 

u  Men  who  win  the  highest  prize 
Are  quick  to  learn  and  quickly  wise ; 
Men  in  the  second  rank  belong 
Who1  re  wise,  but  in  the  learning  long ; 
Those  people  must  be  classed  as  thirds 
Who  stupid  stay,  and  learn  —  but  words" 

It  scarcely  lies  within  the  will  of  every  one 
of  us  whether  his  lot  shall  assign  him  to 
the  first  of  these  classes,  and  happily  it  is 
not  a  matter  of  very  much  concern.  They 
are  the  great  exceptions,  the  moral  geniuses 
of  humanity.  But  to  the  second  rank  every 

138 


one  of  us  is  called,  yes,  emphatically  chal- 
lenged, when  once  the  way  has  been  shown. 
And  the  saddest  thing  that  can  happen  to 
him  in  life  is,  if  he  nevertheless  remains 
among  the  third  sort  of  men,  whose  exist- 
ence, at  the  end,  has  had  no  real  worth, 
either  for  themselves,  or  for  others. 

"  Happy  is  the  man  that  findeth  wis- 
dom, and  the  man  that  getteth  under- 
standing; for  the  merchandise  of  it  is 
better  than  the  merchandise  of  silver, 
and  the  gain  thereof  than  fine  gold. 

"  Wisdom  is  more  precious  than  rubies  : 
and  none  of  the  things  thou  canst  desire 
are  to  be  compared  unto  her. 

"  Length  of  days  is  in  her  right  hand ; 
in  her  left  hand  are  riches  and  honor. 

"  Her  ways  are  ways  of  pleasantness,  and 
all  her  paths  are  peace." 


139 


V.   NOBLE   SOULS 


V.    NOBLE    SOULS 

ANT  somewhere  suggests 
that  all  the  natural  ca- 
pacities of  a  being  were 
intended  completely  to 
unfold,  at  some  time, 
along  the  line  of  some 
definite  purpose,  but  that 
in  man  (the  only  reasonable  being  on 
earth)  the  capacities  intended  for  the  use 
of  the  reason  can  be  unfolded  completely 
only  in  the  race,  and  not  in  every  particu- 
lar individual. 

But  since  this  does  not  come  about 
quite  of  itself,  the  conclusion  would 
necessarily  follow  that  there  must  always 
be  separate  individuals  who  are  specially 
called,  to  bring  about  for  the  whole  of 
humanity  this  development  to  a  higher 
stage  of  its  existence — with  the  proviso 
that  they  shall  also  have  willed  to  devote 
themselves  to  this  purpose  and,  to  this 
end,  to  set  aside  all  other  personal  aims. 
And  even  the  further  conclusion  would 
seem  to  be  justified  that  no  single  human 
life  would  fully  suffice  for  this,  but  that 
rather  a  certain  bequeathal  of  this  mission 
from  hand  to  hand  would  be  possible  and 
fitting. 

With  this  intent,  the  Mosaic  legislation 


cherished  the  magnificent  plan  of  lifting  a 
whole  tribe  out  of  the  ordinary  conditions 
of  the  life  of  the  nation,  and  devoting  it 
to  this,  the  noblest  of  the  activities.  Very 
significantly,  this  tribe  was  forbidden  the 
possession  of  property ;  the  Lord  alone 
should  be  their  inheritance,  and  every 
pious  Israelite  was  obliged,  in  the  interest 
of  the  whole,  to  help  support  them  with 
the  tenth  part  of  his  income  (which,  how- 
ever, he  could  bestow  on  any  Levite  he 
chose).  Whether  such  an  arrangement  could 
be  realized  in  any  of  our  modern  states, 
and  whether  (and  this  is  the  important 
point)  it  could  be  kept  up  indefinitely  as 
established,  might  be  very  questionable. 
But  the  certainty  remains  that  every  human 
society  needs,  for  its  preservation,  some 
such  kind  of  salt,  without  which  it  would 
the  more  easily  fall  into  corruption.  This 
salt  is — the  "  noble  souls." 

Doubtless  Christianity,  at  the  begin- 
ning, had  the  intention  of  requiring  such 
a  temper  of  soul  of  everyone  of  its  follow- 
ers. But  we  have  since  become  much  more 
modest  in  our  demands  on  Christendom 
in  its  entirety  ;  we  have  been  driven  to 
say  that  there  exist  certain  higher  claims 
than  the  ordinary  ones  laid  on  everybody, 
but  that  these  higher  claims  shall  never 
144 


require,  so  long  as  the  world  stands,  an 
artificial,  castelike  order  of  men,  but 
rather  men  who  will  accept  them  in  a 
spirit  of  perfect  freedom  and  even  joy ; 
and  all  thoughts  of  a  specially  privileged 
position  resting  on  these  claims,  and  all 
consequent  feelings  of  superiority,  must  be 
completely  shut  out. 

Thus  this  aristocracy  has  the  advantage 
over  all  others  in  that  it  is  immediately 
accessible  to  all  and  that  every  one  may 
become  the  founder  of  an  aristocratic 
family  after  this  sort.  Nor  will  there  ever 
be  much  crowding  to  get  into  this  aris- 
tocracy, but  nearly  every  one  will  be  ready 
to  yield  this  place  to  the  modern  Levites, 
if  only  they,  in  return,  will  give  up  the 
eager  competition  for  other  advantages. 

Noble  souls,  therefore,  are  those  who 
completely  renounce  the  chief  aim  of 
ordinary  souls,  the  personal  enjoyment 
of  life,  in  order  that  they  may  devote 
themselves  the  more  effectively  to  the  ele- 
vation of  the  whole  race. 

The  ready  objection,  that  both  can 
perhaps  be  combined,  may  well  be  dis- 
puted. Unless  one  purposely  closes  his 
eyes,  his  experience  will  rather  show  that 
this  is  not  the  case  ;  and  any  proof  other 

L  145 


than  experience  will  convince  no  one  on 
this  point.  Nor  can  we  yet  really  believe 
in  any  transformation  and  elevation  of  the 
whole  of  Christendom  through  anything 
that  may  happen  in  the  future.  Christen- 
dom, at  least  at  first,  can  be  regenerated 
only  by  the  gradual  formation  once  more 
of  such  a  band  of  volunteers  within  it  as 
will  earnestly  and  literally  accept  the  de- 
mands of  the  Christian  faith — more  earnestly 
than  (in  a  purely  practical  sense)  is  possible 
to  the  majority  of  the  souls  comprising 
Christendom,  or  than,  at  least  for  the 
present,  can  be  expected  of  them.  The 
clanger  lurking  therein,  that  a  new  Phari- 
saism might  spring  from  it,  is  a  real  one  ; 
but  the  danger  is  lessened  because  this 
conception  of  life  could  remain  on  a  purely 
individual  basis,  without  taking  any  out- 
ward or  organized  form.  It  appears  in  gen- 
eral to  be  a  characteristic  mark  of  the 
present  evolution  of  Christianity  that,  apart 
from  all  essential  improvements  in  its  out- 
ward form,  it  is  going  first  to  develop 
again  from  within  into  an  "  invisible 
church,"  into  a  kingdom  that  truly  is 
not  of  this  world.  To  explain  this,  how- 
ever, is  not  the  purpose  of  this  chapter  ;  it 
would  rather  contradict  this  chapter's  lead- 
ing thought,  that  it  is  first  of  all  a  duty  for 
146 


the  individual  to  proceed  to  his  own  trans- 
formation. The  question  for  us  here,  there- 
fore, is  only  this  :  What  are  the  necessary 
characteristics  of  a  truly  noble  soul  ?  What 
are  the  chief  obstacles  that  stand  in  the 
way  of  this  extraordinary  guidance  of  the 
spirit?  And  finally,  is  it  possible  in  our 
day,  and  is  it  worth  the  trouble,  to  strive 
after  this  goal  ?  What  will  they,  who  do 
thus,  receive  ? 

The  opposite  to  "  noble  "  is  not  "  bad  " 
or  "  vicious  "  (though  these  are  not  noble), 
but  "  little,  narrow-hearted,  provincial, 
thinking  only  of  small  aims  in  life  and 
only  of  oneself  or  of  one's  immediate 
surroundings."  A  broad  vision,  a  large 
heart  for  all,  indifference  for  one's  own 
self,  care  for  others — all  these  are  noble. 
Fearlessness  is  an  essential  element ;  also 
the  not  allowing  oneself  to  be  imposed 
upon  by  anything  in  the  world,  under  any 
circumstances.  This  latter  characteristic  the 
genuine  nobility  has  in  common  with  the 
false,  though  in  a  pleasanter  form  and 
united  with  a  sincere  esteem  for  what  is 
truly  honorable,  an  esteem  that  the  spu- 
rious nobility  lacks.  Another  element  is 
a  certain  finer  cleanliness  of  spirit.  No 
longer  to  be  an  animal  in  any  direction, 

H7 


no  longer  in  any  way  to  favor  the 
merely  physical  being  —  this  is  our  real 
calling,  which  we  are  to  learn  here  on 
earth  that  we  may  pursue  it  hereafter. 
When  the  soul  stands  firmly  upon  this 
level  (and  it  seldom  reaches  it  in  one  gen- 
eration), what  is  vulgar  becomes,  to  noble 
souls,  unnatural  and  therefore  physically 
repugnant ;  while,  at  the  lower  level  of 
development,  it  still  charms  and  entices, 
though  it  may  spiritually  be  already  over- 
come. 

The  following  particular  qualities,  then, 
are  not  noble  :  first,  all  vanity ;  this  is  a 
quite  certain  mark  of  a  soul  still  small ; 
therefore,  second,  all  boasting,  all  self- 
praise  in  general,  and  all  pretensions  of 
even  (so  to  speak)  the  most  permissible 
nature.  These  last  are  not  unmoral,  per- 
haps, but  they  are  at  any  rate  common 
and  small.  Then  we  must  add,  further,  all 
immoderate  pleasure  in  any  kind  of  en- 
joyment, even  when  not  purely  physical ; 
in  eating  and  drinking,  in  music  and  the 
drama,  or  what  not.  The  noble  man  must 
always  stand  above  his  pleasure  and  never 
yield  himself  into  its  power.  Only  one 
step  farther  in  the  very  common  though 
often  innocent  gratification  of  pleasure  is 
the  finding  of  delight  in  luxury;  a  stain  of 


injustice  is  already  associated  with  luxury, 
which  infallibly  means  depriving  another 
man  of  his  own,  and  creates  and  maintains 
a  dividing-line  among  men  such  as  ought 
not  to  exist.  A  noble  simplicity  of  living 
which  does  not  degenerate  into  the  cynicism 
of  the  Stoic  is  a  certain  mark  of  a  soul  by 
right  of  heredity  already  nobly  born;  but 
the  love  of  luxury  is  the  characteristic  trait 
of  the  upstart.  Luxury,  with  debts  besides 
and  one's  consequent  dependence  upon 
men,  is  the  acme  of  commonness  and  leads 
very  often  on  into  wrong-doing. 

It  is  quite  the  contrary  of  noble  to  speak 
much  of  oneself,  and  particularly  to 
boast  of  one's  deeds  or  philanthropy  — 
the  latter,  because  one  is  scarcely  justified 
in  making  much  of  a  stir  about  it ;  for 
very  few  people  give  away  what  they  them- 
selves can  make  good  use  of,  but  only  a 
part  of  their  superfluity,  which,  because  it 
is  a  superfluity,  they  do  not  even  quite 
rightfully  own.  Those  who  are  charitable 
in  a  really  large-hearted  fashion  are,  for  the 
most  part,  only  the  poor,  who  regard  it  as 
a  matter  of  course  that  they  should  help 
one  another  with  everything  they  possess. 
With  them,  giving  is  not  associated  with 
glory,  nor  is  receiving  associated  with 
shame  ;  while  the  higher  classes  often  seek 

149 


to  balance  accounts  with  their  Christianity 
on  the  cheapest  terms,  by  bringing  their 
philanthropy  well  forward  into  men's 
notice. 

To  be  sure,  there  is  a  way  of  concealing 
one's  deeds  in  such  a  fashion  that  they  are 
meant  to  be  discovered  and  thus  win  dou- 
ble praise.  And  it  is  not  wholly  right,  and 
particularly  not  wholly  Christian  to  free 
oneself  altogether  from  personal  contact 
with  poverty  by  means  of  contributions  to 
benevolent  institutions.  The  Gospel  knows 
nothing  of  such  societies  as  yet  (perhaps 
it  even  excludes  them),  but  simply  says, 
"  Give  to  him  that  asketh  thee " ;  one 
might  at  most  add,  "  unless  it  will  mani- 
festly do  him  harm," — as  really  happens 
in  some  cases.  The  anxious  avoidance 
of  any  contact  with  a  callous  or  not 
quite  cleanly  hand  is  anything  but  truly 
noble. 

It  is  not  noble  to  feel  disdain  toward 
inferiors,  toward  poor  people  who  are 
often  the  truly  noble  of  this  world,  toward 
children,  toward  the  oppressed  of  every 
sort,  and  even  toward  animals.  The  chase 
especially,  much  as  it  may  belong  to  the 
pleasures  of  noble  or  would-be  noble  peo- 
ple, can  not  be  regarded  as  anything  truly 
noble,  and  particularly  if  it  is  connected 
150 


with  no  danger,  but  is  simply  a  pleasure 
in  the  killing  of  defenceless  creatures.  Fred- 
erick the  Great  has  a  sharp  passage  about 
this  in  his  writings,  while  the  last  French 
Bourbons  were  zealous  huntsmen. 

To  be  ever  sincerely  friendly  with  ser- 
vants, never  domineering  or  condescend- 
ing, never  familiar,  but  always  generous 
and  careful,  is  a  great  art  which  is  rarely 
learned  in  a  single  generation,  but  is  al- 
ways a  sure  mark  of  nobility. 

The  moods  of  a  noble  soul  are  not  based 
on  pessimistic  lines.  The  pessimists  are 
those  who  have  somehow  fallen  short  and 
are  incapable  of  struggling  with  courage 
for  the  highest  things  of  life  and  of  gain- 
ing them  by  the  power  and  endurance  nec- 
essary. Therefore  they  give  out  that  they 
disclaim  them,  or  represent  the  renuncia- 
tion of  them  as  the  highest  attainable  goal. 
When  their  pessimism  is  not  merely  a  pass- 
ing phase  in  development,  pessimists  are 
always  egotistical  men  of  a  narrow  range  of 
ideas,  to  whom  one  must  not  pay  the  honor 
of  admiration.  Thorough  faultfinders,  con- 
stant critics  of  everything,  tormentors  of 
women,  overexacting,  capable  of  falling  into 
painful  agitation  over  a  misplaced  article 
or  over  a  train  they  have  missed,  —  such 
are  the  least  noble  among  them. 


The  noblest  thing  of  all  is  the  love  of  , 
one's  enemies.  To  be  kind  to  one's  friends, 
or  to  be  friendly  and  fair  toward  everybody, 
is  socially  excellent,  but  a  long  way  still 
from  being  noble.  But  they  who  take  inju- 
ries quietly,  and  can  always  be  just  even  to 
enemies,  are  the  genuine  aristocrats  of  the 
spirit. 

The  perfect  pattern  of  nobility  is  Christ; 
many  of  his  biographers  give  quite  a  false 
impression  in  depicting  him  too  much  from 
the  humble  and  outwardly  meek  point  of 
view,  and  thus  carry  many  conceptions  of 
our  own  bit  of  sky  over  into  the  oriental 
world,  with  its  different  ways  of  thought. 
It  is  just  that  unattainably  perfect  combi- 
nation of  the  tenderest  affection  for  the 
little  ones,  the  poor,  the  oppressed,  and 
the  guilty,  with  that  large  and  calm  self- 
consciousness  before  all  the  high,  the  rich, 
and  the  mighty  of  that  day  (which  never- 
theless is  never  defiance  or  pride), — it  is 
just  that  combination  that  lends  to  this 
personality  a  stamp  it  would  be  hard  to 
declare  purely  human.  To  follow  this  type 
has  since  been  the  task  of  all  who  strive 
after  perfection,  and  whoever  turns  away 
from  it  will  always  run  the  risk  of  chasing 
after  a  false  ideal  and  not  attaining  the 
152 


goal.  As  one  of  these  false  ideals  has  him- 
self truly  said,  "In  the  breast  of  every  man 
two  souls  inhabit :  the  one,  in  the  strong 
joy  of  love,  holds  to  the  world  with  cling- 
ing organs;  the  other  lifts  itself  forcefully 
away  from  the  mist  to  the  fields  of  high 
surmise."  A  force  exerted  to  subdue  one- 
self, and  a  faith  in  these  fields,  will  always 
in  truth  belong  to  the  truly  noble;  and  if 
the  great  poet,  who  never  completely  sub- 
dued the  lesser  of  these  souls  in  himself, 
says,  in  the  second  part  of  his  most  famous 
work,  "  Fool,  whoever  lifts  yonder  his 
blinking  eyes,  and  fancies  himself  above 
the  masses  of  his  equals,  let  him  stand  fast 
and  look  about  him  here,  for  to  him  that 
can  hear,  this  world  is  not  mute," — if  he 
says  this,  then  it  is  to  be  answered  that  to 
nobility  there  also  belongs  something  of  a 
foolishness  that  is  yet  wiser  than  all  the 
wisdom  of  men. 

The  chief  obstacles  in  the  way  of  genu- 
ine nobility  are  the  nobility  that  is  not 
genuine  and  the  fear  of  men. 

The  presence  of  some  sort  of  "aristoc- 
racy" in  every  human  society  of  long  con- 
tinuance is  a  proof  of  the  need  of  some- 
thing such,  and  at  the  same  time  the  chief 
cause  of  its  decay.  One  might  say,  some- 

153 


what  paradoxically,  that  an  aristocracy  is  at 
its  purest  and  best  where  it  has  no  right  to 
exist ;  and  at  its  worst  where  it  possesses 
the  greatest  "  rights."  Those  who  belong 
to  these  higher  classes  live  now,  for  the 
most  part,  in  the  vain  delusion  (to  which 
they  are  systematically  brought  up,  and  by 
which  they  are  debarred  from  any  better 
conception)  that  they  owe  to  humanity 
nothing  further  than  their  mere  existence, 
or  that  there  is  in  general  no  other  society 
for  them  but  the  "  upper  ten  thousand," 
as  they  are  called  in  England.  They  deem 
it  quite  sufficient  if  they  in  a  certain  meas- 
ure stand  as  representatives  of  "  the  beau- 
tiful "  in  the  life  of  humanity,  somewhat  in 
the  sense  of  the  tasteless  expression,  "  The 
rose  that  doth  itself  adorn,  adorneth,  too, 
the  garden,"  or  in  accordance  with  the 
better  expression,  not  always  rightly  ap- 
plied, that  common  natures  count  for  what 
they  do,  noble  natures  for  what  they  are. 
Taken  in  the  right  sense,  this  last  is  true ; 
for  from  nobly  living,  nobly  doing  neces- 
sarily follows  of  itself,  while  it  is  but  hy- 
pocrisy without  it.  One  of  the  surest  marks 
of  men  with  noble  natures  is  that  the  un- 
fortunate are  dearer  to  them  than  the  for- 
tunate. Where  this  is  not  so  there  is  no 
genuine  aristocratic  nature  of  God's  grace, 


but  only  an  ordinary  man,  however  showy 
his  station  in  life. 

A  certain  haughty  inaccessibility  is  very 
pleasant  to  the  proud,  and  passes  with  them 
for  noble.  With  God,  however,  this  is  not 
the  case,  and  the  man  to  whom  he  is  mer- 
ciful he  transfers  to  conditions  of  life  where 
that  must  be  given  up.  For  no  one  has  any 
feeling  for  such  distant  demigods  who  do 
not  share  in  the  common  human  lot.  They 
purchase  their  "  exceptional  position  "  much 
too  dearly,  since  by  it  they  are  shut  out 
from  knowing  what  real  love  is. 

Then,  too,  it  is  strange  that  the  most 
useless  of  these  birds-of-paradise  of  human 
society  (and  proud,  too,  of  their  useless- 
ness)  very  often  deport  themselves  as  zeal- 
ous followers  of  Christianity,  while  their 
whole  mode  of  existence  and  their  whole 
conception  of  the  world  stand  in  contradic- 
tion with  the  most  elementary  Christian 
principles. 

It  will  therefore  remain  on  the  whole  as 
Cromwell  said,  "  The  cause  of  Christ  goes  \ 
hand  in  hand  with  the  cause  of  the  people."  / 
The  spirit  of  nobility  in  the  ordinary  sense 
goes  no  further  than  a  curious  hearing  of 
the  gospel,  or  than  the  attempt  to  use  the 
gospel  for  quite   other  ends  than  it  was 
meant. 

155 


Still  less  noble  than  this  aristocracy  of 
birth  (unless  it  is  also  inwardly  noble)  are, 
as  a  rule,  the  new  arrivals  into  it  from  the 
lower  classes,  who  mostly  bring  with  them 
their  inborn  servile  nature,  or  the  arrogant 
money-aristocrats  who  have  made  them- 
selves rich,  but  to  whom  the  feeling  of  the 
rightfulness  of  their  possessions  must  be 
wanting.  Of  such  a  man  Demosthenes,  in 
one  of  his  finest  speeches,  asseverates  that  he 
was  surely  the  child  of  some  slave  spu- 
riously  substituted  in  the  place  of  the  real 
child,  and  was  not  in  the  least  fitted  to  be- 
long in  a  free  state. 

All  arrogance  (even  that  over  one's  tal- 
ents or  success)  is  an  unfailing  sign  of  a 
small  soul.  Of  pride,  however,  one  can  not 
say  quite  the  same.  In  Dante's  great  poem 
it  is  very  noteworthy  that  it  is  only  in- 
side the  gate  of  grace  that  release  from 
pride,  that  is,  humility,  is  imparted  to  the 
man  who  is  purifying  himself  from  all  his 
faults;  before,  he  employs  his  pride  in  over- 
coming other  and  lower  sins  that  conflict 
yet  more  with  the  nobility  of  the  soul. 

We  can  not,  then,  change  this  fact,  that 
every  genuine  aristocracy  rests  upon  the 
appointment  of  God,  who  is  the  only  right- 
ful "  lord  "  upon  earth,  beside  whom  there 
is  no  other  "  right  of  lordship,"  and  who 


accepts  those  as  his  "  vassals  of  the  crown  " 
whom  he  deems  qualified.  On  the  other 
hand,  it  is  just  as  undoubted  that  indi- 
vidualism, the  right  of  mastery  over  one's 
own  nature  and  over  one's  free  will  so 
far  as  it  is  employed  for  good  ends,  is 
the  most  inalienable  of  all  human  rights, 
and  one  that  no  political  democracy  can  or 
will  ever  set  aside.  To  lower  this  individual- 
ism to  a  mere  class  or  mass  consciousness 
and  to  a  common  average  of  culture  is  bar- 
barism ;  to  develop  it  partially  and  selfishly 
only  for  oneself  is  criminal  or  insane. 
Beauty  of  form  has  its  value  and  its  right 
in  the  training  of  individual  men  and  of 
whole  generations,  provided  it  is  developed 
on  the  sound  basis  of  the  good — as  if  its 
blossom.  But  then  it  is  the  most  perfect 
expression  of  manliness,  of  virtue  in  the 
ancient  sense,  of  that  chivalrous  spirit  of 
the  Middle  Ages  which  to-day  is  expressed 
in  the  word  "  gentlemanlike,"  though  this 
word  often  stands  only  for  an  empty  mould 
without  real  contents.  "  Gentleness,  when 
it  weds  to  manhood,  makes  a  man."  Other- 
wise not. 

"  The  fear  of  man  bringeth  a  fall,"  says 
the  wise  Hebrew  proverb-writer ;  "  but 
whoso  putteth  his  trust  in  the  Lord  shall 

157 


be  safe."  That  is  very  much  in  accordance 
with  experience.  The  fear  of  man  leads  al- 
ways into  by-paths  and  is  ever  somewhat 
petty  and  ignoble.  Yet  no  one,  even  the 
highest  and  strongest,  can  forever  remain 
without  fear,  if  he  knows  no  invisible  Lord 
above  him  on  whose  protection  he  may  ab- 
solutely rely,  so  long  as  he  acts  rightly. 

With  the  fear  of  men  is  allied  a  crowd 
of  other  petty  vices  which  all  take  their 
origin  therefrom.  Hate,  envy,  jealousy, 
vengeance,  resentment,  readiness  to  take 
offence,  malice,  injustice  in  the  judgment 
of  others,  all  as  little  noble  as  possible, 
are  nothing  but  the  consequences  of  fear. 
Even  covetousness,  the  restless  struggle  for 
money  and  property,  often  springs  not  so 
much  from  a  mad  propensity  to  scrape 
everything  together  for  oneself  alone,  as 
from  the  necessity  (justified  if  there  were 
no  God)  of  winning  and  maintaining  in 
the  "  struggle  for  existence  "  a  place  which 
never  can  be  sufficiently  assured  against 
all  mischances,  and  against  all  the  assaults 
of  a  like-minded  overwhelming  number  of 
enviers  and  haters  of  every  individual  pros- 
perity. Looking  at  the  matter  just  from 
the  standpoint  of  covetousness  alone  (which 
has  its  own  great  inconveniences),  if  this  fear 
were  not  present,  there  would  very  likely 


be    no    men  wholly  dispossessed  and  no 
social  question. 

If  one  would  remedy  these  conditions, 
otherwise  so  hopeless,  then  some  must  be 
freed  from  the  fear  of  being  obliged  to 
spend  a  short  life  without  a  just  share  in 
the  happiness  earth  has  to  offer,  whereby 
they  are  necessarily  driven  to  half-insane 
exertions  to  win  it  by  force ;  and  others 
must  be  freed  from  the  apprehension  lest 
they  shall  see  all  become  poor  and  wretched 
on  account  of  a  new  distribution  of 
property  equally  among  all.  To  desire  to 
mediate  between  these  two  opposites  by 
means  of  palliatives  is  the  fruitless  exertion 
of  the  hour.  Neither  attitude  of  mind, 
however,  has  anything  noble  about  it. 

A  soul  that  has  attained  complete  nobil- 
ity, free  from  fear  and  resting  upon  a  firm 
ground  of  faith,  is  the  most  beautiful  but 
also  the  rarest  thing  there  is  now.  Very  few 
will  arrive  at  this  goal  to-day  otherwise 
than  by  roundabout  paths,  be  it  through 
great  doubts  or  through  great  sorrows  ; 
though  to  some  the  way  thereto  is  made 
easier  because  of  their  parentage  and 
ancestry,  so  that  they  can  already  begin 
to  strive  after  it  with  the  advantage  of  a 
better  footing. 

1S9 


Yet  it  remains  a  sad  fad  that  every  child 
that  is  born  clearly  bears  upon  it  the  stamp 
of  such  a  destiny,  whose  attainability  is,  with 
most,  more  and  more  lost  with  advancing 
age,  although  a  heavy  curse  hangs  over  the 
head  of  him  who  draws  away  from  this  des- 
tiny a  single  one  of  the  millions  endowed 
with  a  nature  called  to  the  highest  things. 

Nevertheless,  this  is  actually  so,  and,  as 
was  said  at  the  beginning,  it  is  impossible 
that  there  should  be  none  but  noble  souls 
on  earth  ;  that  would  be  at  once  the  "  state 
of  eternal  rest."  Such  a  noble  and  "  ex- 
clusive "  society  we  picture  for  the  future 
life,  so  far  as  we  can  imagine  that  life  at 
all.  But  there  must  always  be  at  least  a 
number  of  people  who  will  not  bow  the 
knee  to  the  "  Baal "  of  the  hour  and  just 
as  little  desire  to  live  out  their  lives  on  a 
merely  natural  basis  (for  this  is  of  the  na- 
ture of  animals);  but  their  only  care  is,  that 
God  may  continually  dwell  upon  the  earth. 

To  this,  all  are  called,  especially  those 
who  belong  to  the  fellowship  of  Christian- 
ity ;  and  if  few  are  actually  "  chosen,"  yet 
they  form  an  elite  to  which  every  man  has 
access.  This  kind  of  aristocracy  will  never 
pass  out  of  existence,  and  to  it  undoubt- 
edly belongs  the  immediate  future,  the 
more  the  democratic  reform  wins  the 
1 60 


upper  hand  in  the  life  of  the  nations. 
But  it  will  also,  wherever  it  is  genu- 
ine, be  ever  confirmed  and  upheld  by  God. 
An  aristocracy,  on  the  other  hand,  that  no 
longer  has  any  basis  in  its  nation,  is  cer- 
tainly a  false  or  degenerate  aristocracy  that 
rightfully  falls  into  decay. 

For  the  genuine  aristocracy  there  is 
another  and  a  sterner  privilege  than  what 
are  commonly  considered  privileges.  Some- 
thing more  is  demanded  of  it  than  the 
continuous  longing  ordinary  souls  have 
for  happiness  and  pleasure.  And  it  is  not 
good  for  it  if  it  is  ever  quite  absolved  of 
the  sorrows  which  alone  keep  it  in  this 
disposition,  or  if  it  succeeds  or  is  disap- 
pointed in  something  that  sprang  from 
ordinary  motives.  The  belief  in  the  purify- 
ing power  of  sorrow  and  therefore  in  its 
necessity  is  always  the  kernel  and  centre 
of  all  true  ethics,  whether  based  upon 
philosophy  or  upon  religion.  The  noblest 
of  all  earthly  lots  is  sorrow  cheerfully 
borne,  and  the  blessing  that  springs  there- 
from for  many.  And  herein  lies  the  key  to 
an  otherwise  perplexing  riddle ;  and  on  this 
account  many  men,  who  will  have  nothing 
to  do  with  religion,  nevertheless  stand 
nearer  to  it  than  many  who  are  loud  in 
their  religious  professions.  Whoever  can 
M  161 


accept  sorrow  with  a  good  will  and  turn 
iu  victoriously  to  the  building  up  of  a 
better  nature  within  him,  is  and  will  remain 
a  noble  man,  with  a  nature  fundamentally 
religious,  much  as  his  reason  may  resist  any 
positive  confession  of  religious  faith.  And 
in  this  one  point  lies  the  unity,  which,  si- 
lently surmounting  all  limitations,  binds  the 
nobler  men  of  every  faith  and  confession. 

And  so,  a  noble  soul  must  be  able  to 
endure  a  considerable  amount  of  injustice 
as  it  now  exists  in  the  world,  apparently 
never  to  cease  ;  nor  will  it  find  a  cause  of 
offence  either  in  its  own  misfortunes  or 
in  those  of  others ;  nor  must  it  try  too 
carefully  to  escape  a  reputation  for  being 
somewhat  foolish. 

It  is  not  always  the  greatest  talents  that  *•  A 
are  adapted  to  the  greatest  things.  It  is  very 
significant  that  Isaiah  says, "  Who  is  blind, 
saith  the  Lord,  but  my  servant  ?  or  deaf, 
as  my  messenger  that  I  send  ?  "  In  the 
same  manner  Christ  often  says  that,  to  be 
fit  for  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven,  one  needs 
a  childlike  nature  which  the  unwise  are 
closer  to  than  the  wise.  And  the  same  thing 
was  shown  during  the  Reformation  in  the 
case  of  many  who  were  the  wisest  of  their 
time,  but  could  not  decide  to  surrender  a 
162 


certain  "  cultured  "  attitude  of  open-mind- 
edness  and  impartiality  toward  question 
of  which  the  learned  know,  of  course,  that 
one  can,  in  any  event,  "  look  at  it  from 
another  point  of  view."  This  is  yet  to-day 
the  narrow  defile  which  very  many  of  the 
cultured  shun  to  whom  Christianity  would 
be  quite  right,  if  it  only  fitted  in  a  little 
more  with  the  demands  of  the  time,  if  it 
only  would  give  up  something  of  its  uncom- 
promising attitude  in  regard  to  ethics,  and 
something  of  its  absolute  demand  for  faith 
in  respect  to  things  that  are  transcendental 
and  not  to  be  proved. 

Christ  himself  would  undoubtedly  in  his 
day  have  been  able  to  conceive  his  calling 
in  another  way  than  he  did.  The  story  of 
the  temptation  was  an  event  such  as,  once 
in  his  life,  has  happened  to  every  highly 
gifted  man,  and  for  which  he  could  assign 
place  and  date.  Happy  if  he  then  struck 
the  right  road  and  no  longer  let  himself  be 
misled  because  the  whole  world  was  against 
him.  Again  and  again  it  has  finally  been 
obliged  to  yield,  this  "whole  world," 
before  a  single  soul ;  and  we  often  ex- 
perience yet  to-day,  in  the  smallest  as  in 
the  greatest  questions,  the  truth  of  the 
bold  saying,  "  Who  firmly  holds  to  his 
mind,  will  fashion  the  world  to  himself." 

163 


There  is  therefore  always  a  place  and 
a  need  in  the  world  for  this  kind  of 
people,  and  in  this  fact  they  find  their 
modest  portion.  They  have  their  diffi- 
culties, to  be  sure ;  but  to  be  without 
them  is  neither  necessary  nor  good  for 
them. 

Finally,  that  is  a  very  true  word  a  wise 
man  once  spoke,  though  from  an  opposite 
point  of  view,  "In  the  struggle  for  exist- 
ence there  is  always  room  above."  Only 
the  lower  and  middle  places  are  overfilled. 

Therefore,  you  who  are  young  or  are 
dissatisfied  with  your  search  thus  far  for 
happiness,  strike  at  once  for  the  highest 
goal.  In  the  first  place,  that  is  the  surest 
and  best  way  because  it  is  God's  will  and 
because  he  expressly  calls  you  to  it.  In  the 
second  place,  it  is,  of  all  goals,  the  one 
that  most  brings  peace,  while  all  the  others 
bring  many  disillusionments  and  bitter- 
nesses in  their  train.  And  lastly,  it  is  the 
only  one  where  the  race  with  those  con- 
tending for  the  same  prize  of  victory  is 
one  with  friends  and  helpers,  and  where 
you  will  not  be  received  at  the  goal  by 
enviers  and  secret  opponents,  but  by  sin- 
cere friends  and  men  of  the  same  high 
intent — just  noble  souls,  with  whom  alone 
it  is  easy  and  good  to  live. 
164 


VI.   TRANSCENDENTAL   HOPE 


TRANSCENDENTAL   HOPE 

HIS  earthly  life  can  not  be 
the  end  of  all  life  ;  it  can 
not  be  the  final  word 
concerning  our  destinies, 
unless  they  are,  even  in 
the  most  favorable  cases, 
to  close  with  an  enig- 
matic deficit,  and  with  an  unexplainable 
divergence  between  capacity  and  accom- 
plishment, between  task  and  performance : 
this  must  be  evident  to  every  one  who 
carefully  reflects  upon  it,  to  every  one 
who  is  unwilling  to  dismiss  such  questions 
curtly,  unwilling  to  accept  of  death  as  an 
all-conclusive,  comfortless  fate. 

The  life  of  every  thinking  man  who 
does  not  believe  in  its  continuance  after 
death,  ends,  therefore,  in  deep  sadness.  The 
decline  of  all  the  powers,  bodily  and  men- 
tal, fills  the  heart  that  knows  no  further 
hope  with  dejection,  and  with  a  terror,  at 
times,  that  no  circumstances  of  earthly 
fortune  can  save  him  from.  Even  the 
consideration  that  the  works  of  a  man 
survive  him,  or  that  "when  the  body 
shall  fall  to  dust  the  great  name  shall  still 
live  on,"  gives  him  no  adequate  comfort 
for  the  passing  away  of  life  itself.  Some 
then  forcibly  rouse  themselves  and  seek 


in  feverish  activity  to  use  up  the  last 
moments  of  vanishing  existence  in  mak- 
ing sure  that  others  will  have  something 
to  remember  them  by,  or  feel  a  momen- 
tary regret  over  their  loss.  In  other  aging 
men,  on  the  other  hand,  once  more  there 
awakens  with  almost  elementary  force  the 
long-slumbering  desire  for  pleasure  in  every 
direction,  seeking  again  to  blow  into  flame 
the  pitiful  spark  of  the  fire  of  life.  The 
end  in  both  cases,  however,  is  a  helpless 
breaking-down  in  the  face  of  the  con- 
stantly approaching  Unknown,  or  the 
banishment  of  all  thoughts  on  the  sub- 
ject as  far  as  possible,  or  finally,  in  the 
bravest  cases,  a  stoical  surrender  to  an 
unavoidable  fate — unless  there  is  a  hope 
that  life  will  continue  beyond.  Only  where 
such  hope  is  present  is  Death  the  friendly- 
earnest  messenger  who  heralds  to  the  tired 
wanderer  the  end  of  his  journey  and  the 
soon  impending  prospecl,  from  a  slowly  and 
toilsomely  mounted  hilltop,  into  a  broad 
new  world ;  for  all  others  he  is  the  ugly 
skeleton  as  represented  in  the  mediaeval 
Dance  of  Death,  or  at  least  the  inexorable, 
cruel  Reaper  of  the  very  beautiful,  but  very 
melancholy  poem  of  Clemens  Brentano, 
"  There  is  a  reaper  whose  name  is  Death." 
Now,  for  the  first,  there  comes  .to  light 
168 


the  most  remarkable  of  all  the  differences 
between  men ;  now,  at  the  end  of  life,  the 
"  simple  fool "  comes  to  a  victorious  vin- 
dication. For  while  to  all  others  every 
autumnal  falling  leaf  awakens  the  feeling 
of  a  hopeless  passing  away,  he  sees,  even 
in  the  tree  stripped  bare,  the  buds  already 
of  a  new  and  gracious  spring,  and  he 
hears,  in  his  last  days,  not  only  the  un- 
alterable judgment  of  death,  "  Dust  thou 
art,  and  unto  dust  thou  shalt  return,"  but 
at  the  same  time  likewise  the  word  of  life, 
"  Arise,  shine,  for  thy  light  is  come,  and 
the  glory  of  the  Lord  is  risen  upon  thee." 

II 

The  attitude  of  men  toward  the  ques- 
tion of  death,  the  most  important  of  life's 
questions,  is  that  which  best  characterizes 
each  one  of  them,  and  if  one  always  knew 
their  thoughts  about  it,  one  would  be 
able  to  draw  therefrom  the  most  definite 
conclusions  as  to  their  whole  conception 
of  life. 

The  fear  of  death  is  also  the  best  test- 
stone  for  every  philosophy.  A  philosophy 
that  does  not  overcome  this  fear,  or  at 
best  leads  to  sad  reflections  upon  the 
transitoriness  of  life,  is  in  the  first  place 

169 


of  not  very  much  practical  value,  and  in 
any  case  does  not  completely  fulfil  its  pur- 
pose. Nor  is  it  even  quite  consonant  with 
reason ;  for  how  could  we  picture  a  reason- 
able condition  of  man  and  society,  if  there 
were  no  death  ?  For  when  the  lives  of 
prominent  persons  have  been  too  pro- 
longed, it  has  been  a  manifest  misfortune 
to  their  fellow-men.  Far  from  being  an  evil 
that  makes  a  shrill  discord  in  the  universe, 
death  is  rather  an  advantage,  the  only 
conceivably  possible  arrangement  under 
which  a  world  such  as  ours,  in  which  the 
good  must  contend  with  the  evil,  can  exist. 
This  at  least  is  certain,  that  even  upon 
those  whose  "  heart  is  fortified "  against 
any  event,  the  incompleteness  and  trouble 
of  life  often  lies  heavily,  and  that  to  them 
this  earthly  existence  seems  merely  a  tran- 
sitory state  from  which  there  must  some 
day  be  release.  Even  the  happiest  life 
knows  such  moods,  and  though  one  might 
be  entirely  satisfied  with  his  own  lot,  he 
could  not  possibly  be  so  for  his  nation  and 
for  the  millions  of  men  whose  life  seems 
only  one  long  chain  of  deprivations  and 
blunders  that  mock  at  all  attempts  to  help. 
An  old  German  poet,  Heinrich  von  Lau- 
fenburg  (1445),  already  gives  expression  to 
this  mood  in  the  following  verses : 
170 


u  /  would  I  were  at  home  on  high, 
And  all  my  worldly  toll  laid  by  ; 
At  home  above  is  life  deathless, 
And  all  is  joy  without  distress  ; 
A  thousand  year  make  there  one  day, 
And  pain  and  strife  are  gone  for  aye. 
Then  up  /  my  heart  and  hardihood, 
Seek  ye  the  good  above  all  good ; 
Te  may  not  stay  for  long  below, 
To-day,  to-morrow,  ye  must  go. 
Farewell,  O  world!  may  God  thee  bless; 
I  fare  to  Heaven's  happiness" 

But  neither  is  this  yet  the  right  con- 
ception of  death.  One  can  also  die  "  full 
of  days,"  and  age  is  not  necessarily  a 
tedious,  ever-increasing,  hopelessly  in- 
curable disease,  but  it  can  also  be  a  con- 
tinuous advancing,  an  evolving  of  oneself 
toward  a  nobler  and  a  purer  life  than  is 
possible  on  this  earth.  Death  is  then  but 
the  wholly  natural  and  by  no  means 
violent  and  illogical  transition  into  an 
analogous  kind  of  existence  that  only  needs 
to  be  continued ;  the  fruit  is  ripe,  and  falls, 
not  to  be  destroyed,  but  for  a  useful 
harvest. 

Moreover,  if  there  is  no  awakening  after 
death,  then  those  who  believe  in  an  awaken- 
ing will  suffer  naught  from  such  a  delusion, 
but,  without  ever  being  conscious  of  it, 

171 


will  share  the  common  human  fate  of  ex- 
tinction ;  while,  if  there  is  an  awakening 
after  death,  such  an  awakening  can  not  be  a 
pleasant  thing  for  those  who  did  not  be- 
lieve in  it.  This,  indeed,  is  where  faith 
has  the  advantage,  to  speak  quite  practi- 
cally ;  for  if  it  should  be  mistaken,  it  will 
fare  no  worse,  in  this  life  or  later,  than 
the  opposite  view  ;  but  if  it  shall  find  itself 
on  the  right  path,  it  will  fare  better. 

Ill 

Still,  our  hope  in  a  further  life  is  only 
a  hope  and  not  a  demonstrable  certainty. 
Yet  perhaps  it  is  a  well-grounded  assurance, 
resting  first  of  all  on  the  fact  that  capaci- 
ties and  powers  are  placed  in  men  for 
whose  complete  development  human  life 
is  too  short,  and  which  would  therefore  be 
pointless  if  they  did  not  attain  to  a  further 
evolution.  This  is  particularly  manifest  in 
the  case  of  all  men  who  die  young. 

Again,  we  have  the  very  definite  testi- 
mony of  Christ,  whose  whole  conception 
of  life  would  otherwise  rest  upon  a  huge 
error.  The  resurrection  of  the  personality 
is  one  of  the  most  indubitable  and  the 
most  definite  promises  of  Christianity,  and 
without  it  Christianity  would  have  a  very 
dubious  amount  of  truth  and  a  very  doubt- 
172 


ful  value  for  life;  no  " resurrection  of 
the  body,"  of  course,  in  the  literal  sense  of 
the  Christian  confession  of  faith,  as  many 
conceive  it,  but  in  the  sense  in  which 
Christ,  and  Paul  too  on  occasion,  an- 
nounced it  and  in  which  alone  it  can 
satisfy  us  also.  For  though  we  do  not  wish 
to  lose  our  individuality,  nor  rise  again,  as 
Job  rightly  says,  as  "a  stranger  to  our- 
selves "  (in  which  case  there  is  no  con- 
tinuation of  our  life  and  the  whole  question 
no  longer  has  any  meaning),  yet  we  shall 
surely  not  desire  to  live  on  with  all  cc  the 
weaknesses  of  the  flesh  "  ;  and  under  any 
circumstances  there  is  need  of  a  thorough 
transformation,  laying  deep  hold  upon  the 
whole  nature  of  man,  a  transformation  for 
which  the  Catholic  church,  indeed,  assumes 
a  special  preparatory  stage. 

The  details  of  this  transformed  continued 
life  we  do  not  know  at  all ;  nor  do  we 
know,  in  particular,  how  far  those  who  are 
in  that  life  have  any  consciousness  of  their 
former  condition  (as,  indeed,  logically  be- 
longs to  a  continued  life,  else  it  is  none), 
nor  how  far  they  are  in  a  position  to  main- 
tain a  connection  with  their  kinsmen  here. 
Moreover,  we  could  not  apprehend  it  with 
our  present  organs  of  perception,  even  if  it 
were  to  be  disclosed  to  us.  Likewise  all 


descriptions  of  "  eternal  glory "  (with 
which  the  fantasy  of  men  has  taken  so 
much  pleasure  in  busying  itself),  as  well  as 
the  notion  of  an  "  everlasting  rest "  (which, 
with  our  present  ideas  of  rest,  we  could 
not  endure),  are  nothing  further  than 
fantasy,  expressed  in  impossible,  or  at  any 
rate  in  quite  imperfect  pictures.  It  is  surely 
possible,  we  may  hope,  for  the  nature  of 
the  life  to  come  to  be,  far  beyond  all 
human  understanding,  greater  than  all 
these  pictures  represent ;  but  it  will  quite 
surely  be  intelligible  only  for  those  whose 
spiritual  nature  is  suited  for  it  and  suffi- 
ciently purified  from  everything  that  tends 
to  decay.  That  is,  in  other  words,  if  there 
is  a  continued  life  for  all,  and  if  they  who 
have  lived  for  nullities  and  have  not  de- 
veloped their  capabilities  toward  the  at- 
tainment of  things  eternal,  do  not  sink  into 
nothingness,  then  every  one  surely  con- 
tinues to  live  in  the  element  to  which  he 
truly  belongs. 

Whether  there  is  then  an  endless  dura- 
tion of  this  new  state  under  all  circum- 
stances, or  whether  there  are  still  many 
separate  steps  of  life,  as  in  our  life,  and  a 
final  purification  for  all  men  (the  so-called 
"restoration  of  all  things") — these  are 
questions  that  no  one  will  ever  be  able 


to  answer  satisfactorily.  Whether  there  is 
an  eternal  punishment  of  the  wicked  does 
not  seem  to  be  so  very  important — less 
important,  at  least,  than  the  unending  ad- 
vance of  the  good  ;  and  whether  the  wicked 
believe  this,  or  do  not  believe,  it  has  no 
very  real  influence  upon  their  conduct. 
The  punishment  of  the  resolutely  wicked 
(which  many  do  not  see  brought  about, 
and  so  become  easily  dubious  of  the  exist- 
ence of  divine  justice  in  the  world)  is 
particularly  this,  that  they  are  unable  to 
become  better  even  if  in  their  better 
moments  they  wish  to  do  so.  They  are 
obliged  to  remain  slaves  to  their  lower 
nature,  and  to  lose  their  life  without  any 
results  worth  while  and  without  the  hope 
of  an  immortality  which  they  could  only 
fear.  If  that  still  seems  to  you  to  be  no 
satisfactory  compensation  for  the  sorrows 
and  deprivations  of  the  good  upon  earth, 
then  add  this  fact  to  the  account,  that  evil 
men  do  not  experience  the  love  and  fidelity 
of  men,  the  best  of  all  outward  things  the 
world  has  to  offer,  and  without  which  all 
their  other  possessions  might  well  appear 
worthless,  even  to  him  who  has  them  in 
the  greatest  fulness.  He  who  loves  no 
one,  and  whom  no  one  loves,  is  a  poor, 
lonely  man,  though  he  may,  in  the  common 


belief,  be  sitting  in  the  lap  of  fortune.  And 
things  are  so  arranged  that  these  unhappy 
men  can  not  understand  or  value  the  love 
which  perhaps  is  still  tendered  them,  but 
must  infallibly  lose  it  again  through  their 
own  folly.  To  the  things  of  highest  value 
in  human  existence,  the  nearness  of  God, 
an  inward  trust  in  the  good  ending  of  a 
brave  life,  and  that  love  and  fidelity  which 
can  not  exist  without  reciprocal  esteem, — 
to  these  the  evil  man  never  attains.  The 
other  things  let  him  enjoy  in  uneasiness 
and  in  the  continual  fear  of  the  envy  and 
hate  of  thousands  (if  that  can  be  called 
"  enjoyment"  ),  and  do  not  begrudge  him 
a  happiness  that,  for  much  the  greater  part, 
exists  only  in  the  mistaken  idea  that 
others  have  of  it.  "  Non  ragionam  di  tor, 
ma  guarda  e  passa" — speak  not  of  them, 
but  look,  and  pass  them  by. 

As  far  as  concerns  our  present  life  and 
nature,  what  is  necessary  (and  therefore 
conceivable)  as  a  reason  for  our  faith,  is 
only  this  :  that  without  faith  (that  is,  a  trust 
in  the  transcendental,  in  what  we  can  not 
grasp  with  the  senses),  we  can  not  carry  out 
the  purpose  of  life  in  its  entirety,  nor  can 
we  lift  ourselves  to  that  plane  which,  with 
this  faith,  lies  in  our  power  of  attainment 
and  therefore  becomes  our  task ;  that, 


further,  for  the  attainment  of  this  plane  we 
need  a  power  of  love  which  is  stronger 
than  that  which  rests  on  human  affections, 
and  which  is  also  very  likely  the  element 
that  creates  life  and  sustains  it  and  that 
possesses  the  power  to  overcome  death  ; 
and  that  finally  neither  this  faith  nor  this 
love  would  endure  in  the  face  of  the 
enormous  obstacles  which  oppose  them  on 
every  hand  in  our  earthly  existence,  if  it 
were  not  for  the  glad  hope  that  "  there 
remaineth  a  rest  to  the  people  of  God." 

IV 

The  most  positive  fact  we  really  know 
as  to  an  existence  after  death  is  the  resur- 
rection of  Christ.  This  is  evidence  not  only 
historically  vouched  for  (better,  indeed, 
than  most  so-called  "  historical  facts  "  of 
equal  antiquity),  but  also  a  necessary  pos- 
tulate from  a  philosophical  and  ethical  point 
of  view,  unless  the  whole  history  of  the 
world  for  two  thousand  years  past  is  to  rest 
upon  a  delusion,  or  even,  one  may  say, 
upon  an  intentional  falsehood.  The  resur- 
rection is,  and  will  remain,  therefore,  the 
foundation  both  of  all  true  Christianity  and 
of  all  transcendental  hope. 

Judging  by  this  resurrection  of  Jesus,  the 
future  life  would  seem  to  be  somewhat 

177 


similar  to  our  present  existence,  and  death 
accordingly  an  event  of  much  less  impor- 
tance and,  one  might  properly  say,  much 
more  a  matter  of  indifference  than  we 
usually  assume  it  to  be.  At  any  rate,  the 
future  life  will  be  an  evolution  ;  neither  an 
everlasting  rest  in  the  literal  sense,  nor 
everlasting  enjoyment.  The  latter  would 
not  be  noble  enough,  and  the  former 
appears  to  us  as  beautiful  only  in  moments 
of  weariness  and  not  when  we  are  endued 
with  new  vigor. 

On  the  contrary,  indestructible  power 
of  work  and  joy  in  work,  joined  with  true 
depth  and  clearness  of  vision  as  to  the 
ends  of  life  one  should  pursue,  enter,  in 
the  case  of  all  divinely  guided  men,  only 
toward  the  end  of  their  life,  when  all 
seeking  for  pleasure  has  ceased ;  and  this 
is  a  very  safe  indication,  both  as  to  the 
continuation  of  life  itself  (that  it  can  not 
suddenly  cease  at  this  stage  of  develop- 
ment), and  as  to  the  nature  of  that 
continuation  (that  it  can  only  be  a  height- 
ening of  the  best  of  our  present  activities). 
This  is  often  so  clear  to  the  reason  that  the 
assumption  of  a  sudden  extinction  of  this 
activity,  just  when  it  has  become  full  of 
vitality,  seems  thoroughly  unmeaning,  and 
unworthy  of  the  order  of  the  universe 


unless  it  rests  upon  mere  chance ;  and  a 
cosmical  order  resting  upon  chance  alone, 
yet  existing  for  thousands  of  years,  would 
be  a  simple  impossibility. 

Banish  from  your  life,  therefore,  the 
melancholy  fancy  of  a  helpless  sinking 
beneath  the  waters,  for  that  is  foolishness ; 
but  banish  likewise  too  great  a  contempt 
of  life.  Life  is  no  mere  vale  of  sorrow 
that  must  be  escaped  from  as  soon  as 
possible,  but  an  important,  perhaps  the 
most  important,  part  of  our  whole  existence, 
in  which  we  make  our  decision  for  advanc- 
ing life,  or  for  a  gradual  and  real  death. 
Even  the  many  weak-hearted  men  of  our 
day  who  only  want  to  die  quickly  and  "  go 
to  heaven  "  without  a  struggle,  may  well 
find  themselves  deceived,  and  that  the 
struggle  will  yet  meet  them,  but  under 
less  favorable  conditions.  Nor  are  we  to 
envy  the  "innocent"  children  and  young 
people  who,  in  the  view  of  the  Greeks, 
have  died  early  by  a  special  favor  of  the 
gods ;  for  they  must  none  the  less  begin 
from  the  beginning.  It  is  through  conflict 
and  many  troubles  of  every  sort  that  we 
must  attain  to  the  perfection  which  is  our 
present  task.  This  perfecting  process  alone 
opens  the  hard  and  unreceptive  heart 
sufficiently  to  receive  the  noble  seed 

179 


of  a  higher  conception  of  life,  a  seed 
that  must  be  sown  in  the  heart,  and 
first  spring  up,  then  grow,  then  blos- 
som, and  at  last  bear  fruit.  This  life- 
process  may  neither  be  hastened  nor 
avoided,  but  it  must  be  gone  through.  It 
is  therefore  reasonable  that  we  should  not 
be  eager  for  death,  even  if  we  do  not  fear 
it,  but  we  may  justly  rejoice  only  over 
what  we  have  already  happily  gone  through 
and  now,  for  all  eternity,  no  longer  need 
to  experience  and  endure. 

When  one  once  believes  firmly  in  a  con- 
tinuation of  existence  that  alone  supplies 
our  present  life  with  an  intelligible  solution 
of  all  its  questions  and  riddles,  then  a  bit 
more  or  less  enjoyment  or  pain  during  this 
short  span  of  imperfect  existence  becomes 
more  a  matter  of  indifference,  and  much 
that  was  important  before  falls  away  from 
us  as  a  form  without  meaning ;  while,  if 
these  thoughts  are  untrue,  and  if  this  is  the 
only  world,  full  as  it  is  of  injustices,  sor- 
rows, and  passions,  it  is  a  simple  impossi- 
bility to  believe  in  a  just  and  almighty  God. 
Upon  this  single  point,  therefore,  hangs 
our  entire  philosophy  of  life. 

To  me,  the  continuation  of  existence  is 
a  certainty,   but   its   form    inconceivable ; 
180 


only  it  will  be  similar  to  our  present  life 
in  its  purest  moments,  and  will  surely  be 
no  sudden  leap  into  a  quite  different  spir- 
itual condition,  but  a  continuation,  in  which 
each  man  can  receive  only  that  for  which 
he  has  become  ripe  here.  The  difference 
will  therefore,  perhaps,  be  smaller  than  is 
commonly  thought. 

But  the  scientists  are  quite  right  in  de- 
nying immortality  to  a  soul  that  is  simply 
a  function  of  physical  organs.  Whatever 
in  our  nature  can  be  comprehended  by 
the  methods  of  natural  science  can  not 
possibly  be  immortal,  but  passes  into  anni- 
hilation, or  rather  into  dissolution  and 
change,  just  as  surely  as  any  other  object 
in  the  physical  world.  But  there  is  appar- 
ently something  else  in  man  besides  bones, 
muscles,  sinews,  veins,  and  nerves,  and  this 
something  else  can  be  embodied  again  in 
some  other  form.  And  this  seems  to  me 
relatively  more  conceivable  than  a  sudden 
and  complete  annihilation  of  the  spiritual 
life. 

Death,  in  itself,  is  therefore  nothing 
terrible,  nor  even  something  undesirable, 
and  whoever  still  fears  it  is  certainly  not 
yet  upon  the  right  path  of  life.  The  only 
fearful  thing  is  the  backward  glance,  when 

181 


one  is  old,  upon  a  life  quite  perverted  and 
useless,  or  upon  a  great  accumulation  of 
guilt  unforgiven. 

Not  we  shall  pass  away,  but  the  pres- 
ent world  shall  pass  away  :  this  is  the  one 
great  thought  which  must  lift  us  above  all 
the  terrors  of  uncertainty.  The  other  bright 
point  in  this  darkness  which  the  under- 
standing alone  can  not  illumine,  is  the 
thought  that  the  Lord  of  all  existence, 
whom  we  have  already  learned  to  know 
here  as  a  sure  friend,  must  be  quite  the 
same  for  us  there  also  as  he  was  here, 
only  still  nearer  joined  to  us  and  still 
clearer  known. 

His  voice — and  this  all  know  who  have 
once  stood  near  the  dark  exit-gate  of  this 
life — his  voice  we  shall  be  able  to  hear  at 
last,  when  all  else  has  already  sunk  away 
behind  us.  Then,  only  one  step  further, 
and 

"  I  hope  to  see  my  pilot  face  to  face , 
When  I  have  crossed  the  bar." 


182 


VII.    THE     PROLEGOMENA    OF 
CHRISTIANITY 


VII.    THE     PROLEGOMENA    OF 
CHRISTIANITY 

HE  cardinal  fault  of 
Christianity,  which  has 
persisted  from  genera- 
tion to  generation  for 
centuries,  is  perhaps  this: 
that  Christianity  has  for 
long  been  no  genuine, 
vigorous  conviction  of  all  those  who  bear 
its  name,  but  only  a  general  notion  of 
somewhat  the  same  meaning  as  "  human- 
ity "  or  "  civilization."  Thus  year  after 
year  many  thousands  are  received  into 
its  formal  constituency  without  ever  in 
their  lives  receiving  a  correct  idea  of  its 
demands,  or  a  firm  trust  in  its  promises, 
or,  least  of  all,  any  definite  resolution  and 
will  to  hold  themselves  in  duty  bound  by 
these  demands  and  promises.  The  "Chris- 
tian "  nations  distinguish  themselves  from 
the  non-Christian  in  much  the  same  way  as 
the  ancient  "Greeks"  distinguished  them- 
selves from  the  "Barbarians";  and  the 
Christian  faith  has  grown  to  be  a  special 
confession  within  the  borders  of  Chris- 
tendom ;  while  quite  other  convictions, 
never  shared  by  Christ  and  his  first  con- 
fessors, and  conceptions  of  the  world 
which  claim  an  equal  right  in  a  "Chris- 


tian"  state,  venture  to  stand  opposed  to 
Christianity. 

We  may  leave  it  undecided  whether 
this  is  a  fate  that  overtakes  every  religion 
which  ripens  into  a  "  world-religion,"  but 
may  nevertheless  doubt  whether  the  for- 
mation of  such  a  world-religion  by  means 
of  a  great  attenuation  of  all  religious  de- 
mands ever  lay  in  the  original  meaning 
and  task  of  Christianity ;  even  if  one  may 
grant  that,  even  in  this  form  it  has  been 
a  magnificent  tool  of  civilization  and,  in 
fact,  is  still  such. 

Yet  it  is  certain  that  this  course  of  evo- 
lution was  dimly  felt,  even  by  the  first 
generation  of  Christians,  as  an  unavoidable 
though  deplorable  fate,  and  that  the  for- 
mal victory  of  the  Christian  religion  over 
the  heathen  cults  in  the  Roman  Empire, 
and  the  consequent  transformation  into  a 
Roman  state  religion,  brought  into  it  an 
element  that  Christ  himself,  before  Pilate, 
the  Roman  governor  of  Judaea,  had  dis- 
avowed in  the  most  distinct  manner.  All 
which  has  since  been  called  "the  Church," 
or  "  the  relations  between  the  Church  and 
the  State,"  and  which  has  taken  up  so  great 
a  space  in  the  thoughts  of  the  nations,  has, 
as  an  organization,  no  support  in  the 
original  records  of  Christianity  ;  indeed,  it 
186 


often  almost  seems  as  though  the  attain- 
ment of  a  definite  goal  of  human  develop- 
ment and  the  consequent  end  of  the  pres- 
ent age  of  the  world  were  dimly  surmised 
by  the  early  Christians  to  be  nearer  than 
proved  possible,  in  the  sequel.  The  King- 
dom of  God  is  wholly  founded  upon  the 
freedom  of  the  human  will,  and  it  depends^ 
on  that  with  what  speed  and  intensity 
Christianity  will  or  can  come  to  realiza- 
tion in  an  individual,  or  in  a  nation,  or 
in  an  epoch. 

It  is  a  serious  article  of  belief  with  the 
Protestant  group  of  churches,  that  not 
merely  in  a  general  way,  but  for  every 
single  individual  during  his  earthly  life, 
Christianity  is  to  be  realized  through  a 
"  church  "  ;  this  "  church  "  stands  for  the 
continuous  visible  embodiment  of  Chris- 
tianity, and  accordingly  it  receives  the 
individual  into  its  constituency  as  a  mere 
unit  in  the  totality,  in  order  that  it  may 
furnish  him  a  safe  passage  through  the 
judgment  that  shall  finally  take  place  on 
all  the  deeds  of  men.  And  this  does  not 
prevent  many  men,  in  all  the  Christian 
communions,  from  believing  that  mem- 
bership in  these  communions  is  the  chief 
matter;  and  they  busy  themselves  about 
the  fundamental  conditions  of  such  a  mem- 


bership  only  for  a  couple  of  hours  on  Sun- 
days. 

This  accounts  for  the  title  of  this  chap- 
ter. For  we  are  going  to  ask,  not  what 
belongs  dogmatically  to  the  Christian  doc- 
trine, but  what  kind  of  preliminary  dispo- 
sitions are  required  in  the  human  intellect 
and  will  before  we  can  accept  and  under- 
stand the  teachings  of  Christianity.  In  this 
sense  they  are  "  prolegomena/'  If  some 
reader,  after  going  through  this  chapter, 
should  say  that  the  very  substance  of 
Christianity  itself  lies  therein,  I  shall  not 
disturb  him  in  his  conception  ;  for  his 
conception  would  at  any  rate  do  him  less 
harm  than  the  other  view,  which  would 
declare  these  preliminaries  to  be  too  diffi- 
cult, or  not  necessary,  for  entrance  into  the 
church  of  Christ. 

These  first  steps  are  quite  easily  out- 
lined in  a  few  words  :  first,  to  regard  God  / 
as  an  actual  existence  and  not  as  a  mere 
philosophical  idea  of  the  schools,  —  and 
then,  in  consequence,  to  fear  him  alone 
and  to  serve  him  alone — to  have  no  other 
idols  beside  him,  neither  men,  nor  pos- 
sessions, nor  glory ;  secondly,  to  love  the  v 
men  among  whom  one  is  placed  "  as  one- 
self," as  Christ  says,  in  practical  words 
188 


we  can  understand — not  often  more  than 
oneself  apparently,  and  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  in  most  cases  less ;  thirdly,  not  - 
to  devote  one's  life  to  pleasure  even  of 
the  so-called  "  noblest "  sorts,  nor,  on 
the  other  hand,  to  suffering,  to  mere  as- 
ceticism,— but  to  surrender  oneself  to  the 
doing  of  the  will  of  God,  in  the  firm 
confidence  that  this  must  be  practica- 
ble, though  not  through  one's  own  moral 
power,  yet  through  the  divine  help  and 
grace ;  and,  fourthly,  if  any  one  should 
at  first  doubt  whether  all  this  is  possible 
for  man,  to  believe  that,  so  far  as  concerns 
himself,  the  matter  lies  only  in  his  will> 
the  only  thing  he  can,  but  must,  con- 
tribute thereto. 

These  are  the  "  prolegomena  "  of  Chris- 
tianity which  every  one  must  consider, 
before  he  resolves,  upon  reaching  his  years 
of  discretion,  to  make  a  real  entrance 
into  the  Christian  life,  instead  of  going 
forward  upon  the  broader  way,  easier  at 
the  first,  but  sure  to  be  unsatisfactory  in 
the  end. 

If  he  does  not  consider  these  things, 
or  if  he  relies  upon  his  own  strength  in 
the  conduct  of  life  because  he  trusts 
in  the  possibility  of  an  ethical  uplifting 
tendency  already  present  in  human  nature 

189 


and  does  not  think  he  needs  any  transcen- 
dental support,  then  he  is  either  like  the 
man  in  the  Gospel  who  built  a  house 
upon  the  sand  which  stood  only  as  long 
as  the  weather  was  fair,  or  like  that  other 
who  began  to  build  a  tower  which  after- 
ward he  could  not  finish. 

Or  if  he  finds  these  demands  too  high- 
pitched,  then,  even  under  the  best  con- 
ditions, there  springs  up  in  him  that 
consumptive,  anaemic,  half-hearted  Chris- 
tianity which  is  forever  evading  the  urg- 
ings  of  conscience  and  is  consequently 
always  dissatisfied — that  hypocritical  and 
unlovely  Christianity  which  we  all  know 
only  too  well. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  say  much  in 
"  explanation  "  of  these  demands.  The  re- 
quirements of  the  Christian  religion  are 
not  usually  lacking  in  clearness ;  it  is  the 
human  will  that  is  lacking  in  the  resolute-  >/ 
ness  to  accept  them.  It  much  prefers  to 
have  them  explained  away. 

Belief  in  God  is  naturally  the  first  and 
the  most  necessary  preliminary  stipulation 
of  Christianity,  without  which  it  does  not 
exist,  or  is  but  an  empty  dissembling 
name  for  an  entirely  different  way  of 
190 


thinking.  This  is  also  the  case  when  the 
word  "  God  "  is  accepted  as  a  designation 
for  the  totality  of  all  things,  or  the  Abso- 
lute Being,  or,  as  with  most  adherents  of 
"  deism,"  as  an  expression  for  a  something 
that  exercises  no  influence  upon  worldly 
things,  but  somehow  exists  only  as  the 
law  that  in  the  beginning  created  the 
universe,  but  is  now  forever  unchange- 
able ;  where  it  itself  came  from  and  why 
it  no  longer  continues  vital  and  active,  no 
one  can  tell. 

To  be  sure,  we  can  not  explain  a  "liv- 
ing "  God,  as  we  have  often  already  said. 
All  explanations  or  so-called  proofs  of 
God  are  defective,  both  the  positive  and 
the  negative.  It  is  not  worth  the  trouble 
to  linger  over  them.  God  is  something 
that  can  not  be  explained,  but  he  is  not 
something  that  can  not  be  experienced. 
But  he  is  to  be  experienced  only  by 
those  who  "  keep  his  laws,"  and  one 
may  be  practically  quite  sure  that  those 
people  who  will  not  do  this  are  atheists 
at  bottom,  in  spite  of  all  their  assevera- 
tions ;  just  as  there  are  men,  on  the  other 
hand,  whom  God  probably  still  regards 
as  his  followers,  though  we  have  ourselves 
long  given  up  regarding  them  as  such. 

The  experience  of  God  expresses  itself 

191 


thus  :  first,  in  spiritual  tranquillity,  satisfac- 
tion, quieting  of  the  thirst  for  truth  (as 
Christ  calls  it),  a  sort  of  strengthening  of 
the  spirit  and  of  the  inner  life  such  as  is 
vainly  to  be  attained  in  any  other  way, 
whether  through  philosophy,  or  through 
a  refusal  to  think  at  all  about  such  things ; 
second,  in  inward  serenity  which,  gained 
in  any  other  way,  is  not  so  long-enduring ; 
and  finally,  in  a  general  deeper  intensity 
of  life,  the  effective  cause  of  physical  and 
spiritual  health  and  so  of  the  manifold 
blessing  which  springs  from  this  belief 
in  God,  both  for  individuals  and  for 
nations. 

It  is  this  blessing  that  is  showing  itself 
when  all  one's  circumstances,  apparently 
of  their  own  motion,  so  shape  themselves 
that  what  is  truly  excellent  (the  furthering 
of  the  inner,  the  protection  of  the  outer 
life)  always  prevails,  and  danger  is  averted  ; 
on  the  other  hand,  no  travelling  in  byways, 
no  wrong  actions,  are  attended  with  good 
results.  The  latter  is  the  usual  punishment 
of  evil  men,  whereby  they  are  hardened 
and  kept  from  turning  to  a  better  life.  It 
is  also  the  ever-visible  means  of  distinguish- 
ing between  the  divine  blessing  and  that 
outwardly  similar  worldly  "  good-fortune  " 
in  which  even  the  shrewdest  of  men  often 
192 


put  an  inconceivable  and  quite  groundless 
confidence,  until,  sometime  or  other,  it 
leaves  them  in  the  midst  of  dire  difficulties  ; 
for  the  most  part  at  the  very  moment  when 
they  believed  they  had  definitely  secured 
it  and  had  attained  to  the  proud  summit 
of  their  desires.  Men  are  never  faithful 
to  the  mere  "  children  of  fortune,"  but 
only  to  their  fortune ;  while  they  can  not, 
if  they  wanted  to,  oppose  those  endowed 
with  the  divine  blessing. 

On  this  point  the  Old  Testament  con- 
tains many  positive  assurances  and  many 
actual  examples,  and  it  may  in  general  be 
said  that  for  the  presentation  of  the  Laws 
of  God  the  New  Testament  alone  would 
not  suffice ;  nor  is  that  its  purpose,  for 
it  always  implies  a  knowledge  of  the  Old 
Testament. 

"The  man  who  keepeth  my  laws  shall 
thereby  live,"  is  the  sum  of  these  promises. 
For  these  laws  are  the  principle  of  life 
itself,  and  to  ignore  them  is  to  come  with- 
in the  jurisdiction  of  death.  That  may  be 
put  to  the  test,  and  ought  to  be  put  to  the 
test,  if  it  is  done  with  a  sincere  desire  to 
know  what  to  believe,  and  if  it  is  not  con- 
tinually repeated  after  one  has  once  gained 
a  sufficiently  clear  knowledge.  But  for 
those  who  will  not  do  even  that  there  is 


nothing  left  save  to  make  for  themselves 
other  gods  "  to  go  before  them." 

These  gods  are,  as  a  rule,  human  beings 
or  the  produces  -of  their  mind  in  some 
form, — once  again  to-day,  as  in  the  period 
of  the  so-called  Renaissance,  preeminently 
in  the  form  of  art.  Great  crudeness  of  morals 
and  the  absence  indeed  of  all  ethical  con- 
ceptions may  go  hand  in  hand  with  the 
finest  and  highest  culture  in  this  special 
direction,  thus  showing  that  art  can  not  be 
the  highest  goal  men  can  strive  for  and 
attain.  We  ought  not  to  have  had  to  ex- 
perience this  for  the  second  time,  though 
it  is  often  to  be  feared  that  we  are  now 
doing  so. 

We  should  never  make  idols  for  ourselves 
of  even  the  dearest  and  best  men,  not  to 
speak  of  those  who  are  highly  gifted  or 
hold  a  high  place  in  the  world's  esteem. 
Not  only  the  New  Testament,  but  even 
the  Old,  lays  down  in  a  very  practical  way 
the  proper  and  easily  recognized  limit ;  for 
they  prescribe  that  we  are  to  love  God 
"  above  all,"  and  men  "  as  ourselves,"  no 
more  and  no  less.  Even  the  simplest  per- 
son can  easily  compute  this ;  and  if  in  cer- 
tain exuberant,  "  heavenly  "  moments  of 
life  it  seems  too  little,  yet,  taking  one's 
whole  life  into  account,  it  is  really  more 
194 


than  any  of  us  perform,  and  at  any 
rate  is  much  more  salutary  for  our  neigh- 
bor. 

The  opposite  quality  to  "  reliance  upon 
men "  is  (what  at  first  seems  unlikely) 
sympathetic  compassion ;  when  reliance 
departs,  compassion  enters  to  heal.  This 
is  something  quite  different  from  what  is 
ordinarily  called  "  love  to  men,"  and  is 
much  more.  It  is  something,  too,  that  does 
not  naturally  lie  within  us ;  we  have  to 
learn  it,  usually  late  in  life  and  through 
troublous  paths.  But  when  a  man  has  it, 
then  it  is  henceforth  sure  that  he  is  "  fit  for 
the  Kingdom  of  God." 

If  it  is  not  men  and  their  works,  then 
it  is  possessions,  ambition,  or  the  continu- 
ous search  for  enjoyment  that  stands  most 
in  the  way  of  that  sincere  union  of  the 
human  soul  with  the  divine  spirit  which 
necessarily  forms  the  foundation  of  all 
Christianity  ;  —  above  all,  it  is  the  "  deceit-]* 
fulness  of  riches,"  as  the  Gospel  well  calls 
it,  the  very  common  delusion  that  posses- 
sion and  happiness  are  identical,  a  delusion 
from  which  the  man  first  awakes  when  he 
holds  in  his  hands  that  for  which  he  was 
striving  and  for  which  he  had  often  sac- 
rificed body  and  soul ;  and  now  for  the 
first  he  discovers  that,  looked  at  closely, 

195 


it  was  not,  even  on  the  best  interpretation, 
worth  all  this  exertion. 

In  the  Gospel  are  found  these  words  of 
Jesus  :  Lay  not  up  for  yourselves  treasures 
upon  the  earth  ;  ye  can  not  serve  God  and 
Mammon ;  whosoever  he  be  of  you  that 
renounces  not  all  that  he  hath,  he  can  not 
be  my  disciple.  If  I  were  an  adherent 
of  the  atheistic  Socialism  of  our  day,  I 
would  constantly  hold  up  these  sayings  of 
their  Lord  and  Master  before  the  sincere 
followers  of  Christianity,  who  are  by  far 
the  most  dangerous  opponents  of  Social- 
ism ;  for  if  they  should  obey  these  sayings, 
without  any  further  effort  the  solution  of 
the  social  question  would  follow.  But  there 
are  many  passages  of  the  Bible  which  are 
almost  divested  of  their  value  because  of 
a  kind  of  disqualifying  law  of  customary 
usage ;  or  they  are  at  least  not  spoken  of 
in  religious  circles,  because  they  have  little 
that  is  "  edifying  "  for  many  of  those  pres- 
ent. 

If  we  must  admit  that  such  passages 
designate  the  goal  or  ideal  toward  which 
we  should  strive,  rather  than  that  to  which 
every  one  can  at  once  attain,  we  should, 
nevertheless,  keep  our  eyes  continually 
upon  it  and  have  the  earnest  will  to  make 
our  way  thither  ;  else  all  the  other  messages 
196 


of  the  Gospel  profit  us  nothing  and  are 
for  us  as  if  they  were  not  there. 

To  speak  practically,  then,  one  must 
never  fix  his  heart  upon  possessions,  nor 
regard  them  as  the  most  important  thing  to 
be  lived  and  striven  for,  nor  make  them 
the  measure  of  his  valuation  of  men  and 
circumstances,  nor  be  unready  or  disinclined 
to  diminish  them  at  any  time  for  the  sake 
of  God  or  the  common  good,  and  if  nec- 
essary even  to  give  them  up  altogether. 
They  who  can  do  this  when  it  is  required 
of  them  are  the  only  men  who  are  free  and 
worthy  of  God's  kingdom.  At  different 
times  in  life  they  will  often  be  put  to  this 
test,  and  if  this  has  never  yet  happened,  it 
is  no  good  sign  for  their  inner  life  or  for 
their  standing  in  God's  grace.  Often  it 
goes  no  farther  than  the  testing  of  their 
will,  and  when  the  will  has  surrendered, 
God  does  not  require  of  them  the  adual 
deed,  or  he  lets  the  trial  so  shape  itself 
that  in  the  end  it  is  the  more  easily  endur- 
able. Sometimes,  however,  as  with  Job,  it 
comes  to  a  real  loss  of  all  one's  goods ; 
and  not  always  is  there  finally  a  double 
compensation  therefor,  but  there  always 
is  a  complete  consolation  for  what  one 
has  done,  provided  one  will  seek  for  it  and 
not  merely  helplessly  and  weakly  bewail. 

197 


In  order  always  to  have  the  mastery  of 
oneself  and  to  put  this  to  the  proof,  it 
may  often  be  a  good  thing,  even  before 
one  resolves  upon  Christianity,  to  make 
the  test  of  Polycrates,  who  cast  a  much- 
treasured  ring  into  the  sea.  Try  it  once, 
this  surrender  of  your  dearest  possession  ; 
though,  to  be  sure,  the  test  will  in  most 
cases  come  to  you  unbidden,  if  it  is  your 
lot  to  become  a  free  man  by  God's  grace 
instead  of  a  slave  to  Mammon.  But  no 
matter  how  it  comes  to  you,  if  you  have 
shown  yourself  able  to  make  this  surrender, 
you  will  be  set  free  from  the  strongest 
fetter  with  which  the  spirit  of  the  world 
keeps  man  bound  ;  the  rest  of  your  pos- 
sessions will  henceforth  become  more  a 
matter  of  indifference  to  you.  Of  course, 
in  this  question  of  possessions,  the  concern 
is  rather  with  the  spirit  and  the  will  than 
with  the  mere  deed.  One  can  also  "  possess 
as  though  he  possessed  not"  (though  the 
possibility  of  deception  here  is  very  great), 
and  if  one  no  longer  spends  anything  for 
mere  enjoyment  or  luxury,  but  applies 
everything  to  useful  ends,  not  counting 
among  such  ends  the  mere  senseless  heap- 
ing up  of  possessions  for  heirs  and  suc- 
cessors down  to  the  remotest  ages,  then 
one  may  believe  his  actions  respond  to  the 
198 


real  meaning  of  the  words  of  Christ.  We 
at  least  will  not  cast  the  first  stone  at  those 
who  so  comport  themselves. 

One  good  help  in  this,  besides  the  firm 
resolve  to  forego  all  luxury,  is,  as  already 
explained  in  a  former  chapter,  systematic 
giving ;  another  is,  to  reckon  and  calculate 
as  little  as  possible,  and  to  busy  oneself 
as  little  with  money  as  is  compatible  with 
a  necessary  order  in  one's  business  and 
private  affairs.  For  money  has  an  evil 
charm  about  it  like  that  of  philosophical 
heresy  ;  neither  will  easily  let  a  man  go 
again  when  once  he  has  become  much 
involved  in  them. 

Glory  is  for  many  just  as  strong  a  fetter 
as  mammonism — not  only  the  excessive 
eagerness  for  the  ordinary  human  and 
civic  honors  (exposed  though  they  always 
are  to  the  judgment  of  contemporaries  or, 
in  the  greater  instances,  of  posterity)  but 
also  the  anxiety  for  respectability.  As  to 
the  former,  Paul,  one  of  the  most  abused 
of  men,  has  left  us  a  very  good  statement  in 
i  Cor.  iv.  3  ff.;  and  that  any  one  loses  the 
regard  of  his  citizens  quite  without  blame 
is  really  much  rarer  than  is  commonly 
supposed.  On  the  other  hand,  God  often 
enough  makes  one's  former  enemies  to  be 

199 


those  who  become  the  most  satisfied  with 
him,  and  the  prophetic  words  of  Isaiah 
come  splendidly  to  take  the  place  of  the 
earlier  underestimation  :  "  And  the  sons 
of  them  that  afflicted  thee  shall  come 
bending  unto  thee  ;  and  all  they  that 
despised  thee  shall  bow  themselves  down 
at  the  soles  of  thy  feet."  But  one  must  be 
able  to  endure  things  if  he  is  to  adopt 
Christianity ;  those  too-sensitive  Christians 
who  crave  the  esteem  of  even  those  they 
do  not  themselves  esteem  only  show  that 
the  world  and  its  praise  are  still  far  from 
being  enough  a  matter  of  indifference  to 
them. 

The  real  positions  of  honor  are,  after 
riches,  the  most  dangerous  thing  there  is  for 
faith  ;  on  this  point  the  Gospel  leaves  not 
the  least  doubt.  Whoever  runs  into  this 
danger  quite  of  his  own  free  will,  even 
perhaps  with  eager  zeal,  quite  commonly 
perishes  therein,  so  far  as  concerns  his 
better  and  only  worthful  life.  But  whoever, 
by  his  calling  or  by  his  lot,  is  compelled 
to  accept  such  positions  and  yet  would 
like  to  become  or  remain  a  Christian, 
has  every  cause  to  be  watchful,  and  to  be 
thankful  for  occasional  humiliations,  an 
article  in  which,  happily,  the  world  seldom 
lets  him  be  lacking. 
200 


For  the  greater  number  of  men  in 
the  ordinary  situations  of  life  the  hardest 
part  in  the  prolegomena  of  Christianity  is 
perhaps  the  conquering  of  one's  desire  for 
pleasure.  The  humbler  classes  often  escape 
this  desire  with  still  less  success  than  do 
the  wealthy  and  the  aristocratic,  who  may 
have  learned,  through  experience,  to  place 
a  better  estimate  upon  the  worth  or 
worthlessness  of  the  pleasures  of  the 
material  life.  One  often  finds  in  the  lower 
classes  a  much  more  unrestrained  passion 
for  pleasure,  which,  joined  with  the 
atheistic  mood  they  purposely  cultivate, 
sometimes  degenerates  into  a  true  savagery 
and  makes  them  like  animals,  and  animals 
not  of  the  noblest  sort,  either. 

But  unfortunately  the  upper  strata  of 
society  often  enough  lead  the  way  by  their 
own  bad  example.  They  often  complain  of 
the  love  of  pleasure  and  the  frivolity  of 
the  serving  classes ;  but  things  would  go 
better  if  the  servants  did  not  perceive  in 
their  masters  the  same  propensities  that 
restlessly  agitate  them. 

Pleasure  set  up  as  a  rule  of  life,  sen- 
suousness  (taken  in  the  widest  sense) 
established  as  the  controlling  power  in  the 
life  of  a  man  —  this  is  the  infallible  death 
of  all  faith  in  transcendent  things.  These 

201 


two  powers,  pleasure  and  faith,  do  not 
long  exist  side  by  side  in  a  man,  but 
the  one  or  the  other  must  leave  the  field. 
Happy  he  in  whom  it  is  the  power  of  the 
sensual  element  that  retreats  before  that 
of  the  spiritual,  vigorously  striving  for  the 
mastery.  For  every  victory  over  the  love 
of  pleasure  (what  is  not  otherwise  always 
the  case  on  the  so-called  path  of  virtue) 
brings  at  once  its  own  reward  in  an  in- 
creased vigor  of  the  ideal  life,  and  often 
in  a  broad  spiritual  progress  in  the  wider 
sense.  We  can  truthfully  say  that  the 
most  of  the  great  advances  in  the  inner 
life  are  ushered  in  by  some  renunciation 
which  brings  its  own  compensation. 

That  to  the  love  of  pleasure  all  sorts 
of  attractive  names  are  given  and  that  it 
in  truth  assumes  now  finer,  now  coarser, 
forms,  should  not  lead  us  astray.  It  is, 
nevertheless,  under  all  circumstances,  that 
trait  in  us  which  most  resembles  animal 
nature  and  forthwith  reveals  its  ignoble 
character  in  the  fact  that  it  is  always  united 
with  egotism  and  the  exploitation  of  others 
for  our  own  selfish  inclinations.  The  partial 
naivete  of  the  ancient  world  is  wanting  in 
humanity  now,  for  their  eyes  have  been 
opened  to  its  meaning  ;  and  a  universal 
failure  to  conquer  the  love  of  pleasure 

202 


through  higher  interests  would,  in  these 
days,  be  an  unprecedented  and  quite  im- 
possible relapse  of  humanity  into  an  earlier 
age. 

With  the  pursuit  of  pleasure  dies  the  in- 
clination for  riches  and  honor,  which  are 
partly  only  means  in  that  pursuit  and  not 
ends  in  themselves ;  and  instead  there 
springs  up  joy  in  work,  the  best  salvation 
from  all  evil,  that  otherwise  always  sur- 
rounds and  tempts  a  man  in  one  way  or 
another.  For  when  the  pursuit  of  pleasure 
disappears  as  a  rule  of  life,  then  a  man 
must  work,  or  the  world  is  too  dreary.  On 
the  other  hand,  with  the  pursuit  of  pleasure 
as  his  innermost  spring  of  adion,  a  man 
will  always  look  upon  work  as  only  a 
means,  and  a  disagreeable  one,  to  the  at- 
tainment of  pleasure. 

That  one  may,  nevertheless,  find  an  art- 
less enjoyment  in  the  beauty  of  nature,  in 
the  serene  succession  of  the  days  and  the 
years,  in  one's  family  and  in  true  friend- 
ship, in  uplifting  art  and  science,  in  the 
life  and  welfare  of  his  nation,  even  in  the 
inoffensive  animal  and  plant  worlds,  and, 
above  all,  in  all  the  great  and  good  activi- 
ties that  are  going  on  in  the  whole  realm 
of  humanity  —  all  this  is  to  be  taken 
entirely  for  granted.  Indeed,  a  keen  sensi- 

203 


tiveness  to  such  things  is  a  sure  mark  of 
an  unspoiled  temperament,  and  especially 
of  years  of  youth  purely  spent,  a  youth 
that  has  not,  by  poisonous  pleasures,  pre- 
maturely deadened  its  feeling  for  the  true 
and  harmless  joys  of  life. 

Furthermore,  an  excessive  repression  of 
the  life  of  the  body  is  certainly  not  advan- 
tageous for  spiritual  progress  —  still  less  is 
it  a  divine  command,  but  it  is  rather, 
whenever  it  appears,  merely  a  human  de- 
vice with  no  decisive  value.  On  this  point 
a  thoughtful  commentator  of  the  oldest 
biblical  records  says,  very  truly,  that  men 
always  have  a  tendency  to  heighten  the 
commands  of  God,  which  are  themselves 
properly  meted  and  adapted  to  men's 
capabilities ;  and  that,  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment narrative  of  the  first  trial  of  obedi- 
ence, God  did  not  say  that  Adam  and  Eve 
should  not  touch  the  tree  of  the  knowl- 
edge of  good  and  evil,  but  only  that  they 
should  not  eat  of  its  fruit ;  it  was  Eve  her- 
self who  added  the  further  prohibition, 
"  neither  shall  ye  touch  it,"  and  by  so  do- 
ing placed  the  Tempter  in  the  desired 
position  of  making  an  alleged  divine  com- 
mand manifestly  untrue  on  its  face,  be- 
cause the  mere  touch  of  the  tree  did  not 
cause  death.  (Genesis  ii.  17,  and  iii.  3,  4.) 
204 


Thus  it  is,  indeed,  with  many  exaggerated 
and  unnecessary  commands  which  parents 
lay  upon  their  children  or  churches  upon 
their  adherents,  the  non-fulfilment  of 
which  they  then  with  equal  facility  over- 
look. 

An  exact  and  literal  obedience  to  all  the 
real  divine  commands,  which  are  all  practi- 
cable, and  a  thorough  scorn  and  disregard 
for  all  the  "  commandments  of  men  "  — 
this  is  the  only  way  by  which  our  Christian 
confessions  could  now  bring  themselves 
new  life. 

Even  the  inclination  to  undergo  suffer- 
ing and  renunciation  is  somewhat  danger- 
ous, and  the  more  so  because  it  is  often 
joined  with  a  secret  desire  for  praise,  in 
which  case  one  devil  is  but  supplanted  by 
another,  perhaps  still  more  powerful.  A 
man  should  not  throw  away  his  life,  not 
even  by  a  lingering  neglect  of  his  powers ; 
only,  he  should  not  overvalue  his  body's 
well-being  nor  put  it  too  much  in  the 
foreground. 

Christ  himself  is  in  this  respect  an  in- 
imitable example  of  a  simple  moderation 
which,  at  times,  allowed  itself  to  enjoy  an 
almost  luxurious  homage,  as  in  the  case  of 
the  box  of  precious  ointment,  which  evi- 

205 


dently  made  Judas,  the  apostle  of  literal 
asceticism,  to  lose  faith  in  him.  Even  the 
most  advanced  Christian  should  live  quite 
like  a  natural  man,  not  like  a  hermit  or  a 
pillar-saint,  and  should  seek  the  worth  and 
purpose  of  life  neither  in  pleasure  nor  in 
suffering  and  renunciation,  but  only  in  the 
carrying  out  of  the  will  and  commission 
of  God.  A  wise  saying  of  Blumhardt's, 
often  quoted,  declares  that  one  must  be 
twice  converted,  once  from  the  natural  to 
the  spiritual  life,  and  then  back  again 
from  the  spiritual  to  the  natural  so  far 
as  is  justified ;  but  that  this  is,  perhaps, 
accomplished  in  some  cases  at  a  single 
stroke,  without  a  preliminary  exaggeration 
of  the  spiritual  nature.  Many  linger  too 
long  in  this  double  mutation,  and  during 
this  period  afford  no  very  agreeable  spec- 
tacle. 

Finally,  one's  own  power  can  never  set 
the  upward-striving  man  free  from  all  those 
enemies  of  his  real  happiness  which  keep 
him,  in  a  very  genuine  sense,  from  en- 
tering into  true  Christianity.  The  "  old 
Adam"  is  still  to-day,  as  at  the  time  when 
the  expression  was  first  used,  "too  strong  1 
for  the  young  Melanchthon,"  and  all  good 
resolutions  give  as  good  as  no  help,  so 
206 


long  as  the  man  will  not  lay  hold  on  the 
aid  sent  us  by  God  himself  to  that  end. 
But  even  he  can  not  help  unless  the  man 
completely  surrenders  his  will.  This  is  the 
man's  share  in  the  work  of  his  liberation 
from  the  fetters  of  the  natural,  selfish  life ; 
everything  else  is  done  to  him. 

Dante,  in  particular,  explains  this  very 
clearly  in  the  twenty-first  canto  of  the 
PurgatortOy  where  the  joyous  trembling 
of  the  mountain  of  purification,  when  a 
soul  finally  rises  into  its  higher  region,  is 
portrayed  in  the  following  verses  : 

u  It  trembles  when  any  spirit  feels  itself 
So  purified  that  it  may  rise,  or  move 
For  rising ;  and  such  loud  acclaim  ensues. 
Purification  by  the  will  alone 
Is  proved,  that,  free  to  change  society, 
Seizes  the  soul  rejoicing  in  her  will. 
Desire  of  bliss  is  present  from  the  first ; 
But  strong  propension  hinders,  to  that  wish 
By  the  just  ordinance  of  heaven  opposed — 
Propension  now  as  eager  to  fulfil 
The  allotted  torment  as  erewhile  to  sin. 
And  I,  who  in  this  punishment  had  lain 
Five  hundred  years  and  more,  but  now  have  felt 
Free  wish  for  happier  clime." 

Every  one  acquainted  with  his  inner  life 
will  confirm  that  for  a  long  time  at  first  a 
partial  will  toward  the  good  fought  in  him 

207 


with  inclinations  of  which  he  very  well 
knew  that  they  would  bring  him  just  suf- 
fering. So  long  as  the  soul  is,  nevertheless, 
unable  to  conquer  this  desire,  it  will  re- 
main in  essentially  its  former  state.  But  if 
it  holds  on  to  the  impulse  to  freedom  not- 
withstanding, by  God's  grace  there  will 
come  a  memorable  day  on  which  it  will 
at  last  feel  in  itself  the  fully  determined 
will  to  move  forward,  and  then  forthwith 
it  is  free,  and  afterward  does  not  under- 
stand how  it  could  have  delayed  so  long. 

Yet  it  would  not  be  right  to  wait  inac- 
tive till  the  will  is  thus  fully  determined. 
Christianity,  like  many  another  thing,  is 
learned  only  through  trial,  not  through 
study.  On  the  contrary,  idly  talking  about 
it  is  most  foreign  to  its  spirit,  and  so- 
called  learned  explanations  easily  make 
it  but  darker  and  more  dubious ;  that  is 
a  "science"  which,  like  every  other,  one 
may  leave  entirely  in  the  hands  of  those 
who  are  called  thereto,  and  which  very 
often  contributes  nothing  of  moment  to 
their  spiritual  advancement.  Christianity  is 
surely  completely  understood  only  through 
that  spirit  which  the  Gospel  calls  the  Holy 
Spirit.  What  that  is,  we  do  not  know ;  we 
can  only  know  that  it  is  a  very  real  phe- 
nomenon which  becomes  manifest  in  its 
208 


effects  upon  our  life,  and  which  can  grad- 
ually make  us  more  and  more  indifferent 
toward  everything  that  the  world  considers 
as  the  greatest  possessions  and  the  most 
indispensable  pleasures.  To  this  freedom 
we  are  called,  and  it  has  been  made  pos- 
sible through  Christianity — what  before 
might  well  seem  very  doubtful.  But  we 
are  not  done  when  we  have  found  Chris- 
tianity "interesting" — often  because  of  its 
extravagances  rather  than  because  of  its 
real  sobriety  in  the  conception  of  man 
and  his  natural  powers ;  we  must  above 
all  things  make  a  beginning,  and  then 
progress  therein  comes  quite  of  itself. 

Therefore,  O  soul,  thou  who,  from  the 
mazy  gardens  of  the  common  life  of  the 
world  that  no  longer  wholly  satisfy,  hast 
arrived  at  happiness  by  this  simplest  and 
best  of  all  roads,  but  nevertheless  still 
standest,  somewhat  trembling,  before  the 
actual  entry  into  the  forecourts  of  Chris- 
tianity itself  (perhaps  because  thou  seest 
there  a  company  that  does  not  fully 
awaken  thy  confidence),  take  thy  reso- 
lution notwithstanding,  and  dare !  It  will 
not  be  long  before  thou  seest  at  least 
enough  to  have  made  thy  daring  seem 
worth  while.  It  is  but  rarely  that  any 
one  turns  back  again  from  this  road,  and 
p  209 


never  yet,  for  thousands  of  years,  has 
any  one  who  has  travelled  it  quite  to 
the  end,  lifted  up  complaints  of  a  wasted 
life,  or  even  of  an  existence  too  hard  to 
be  borne. 

But  how  many  there  are  to-day  who 
complain,  on  the  other  roads  to  happi- 
ness ! 

No  one  who  is  willing  to  confess  the 
truth  can  deny  that  in  every  human  soul, 
even  in  one  already  resolutely  set  to- 
ward faith  in  transcendental  things,  seri- 
ous doubts  can  now  and  then  arise  as  to 
the  reality  of  all  its  conceptions  and  hopes. 
They  who  most  vehemently  condemn  such 
temporary  doubts  in  others  are  not  the 
ones  who  are  the  best  confirmed  in  the 
faith,  for  by  such  zeal  they  are  often  only 
seeking  forcibly  to  suppress  their  own 
doubts.  But  in  such  moments,  thus  much 
remains  sure,  that  there  is  no  certainty 
anywhere  to  be  found  as  to  the  great 
questions  of  the  present  and  future  life, 
better  thanfc  that  which  Christianity  af- 
fords, and  that  there  is  no  adequate  sat- 
isfaction to  be  found  in  trying  to  content 
oneself  with  only  the  results  of  "  natural 
science,"  many  of  which  are  still  very  un- 
certain ;  while  one  simply  banishes  from 
210 


his  thoughts  all  further  questions,  as  to 
the  interrelation  of  all  things  in  a  higher 
sense,  and  as  to  the  moral  laws  of  the 
universe,  —  questions  on  which  the  life 
and  welfare  of  humanity  most  of  all  de- 
pend. That  will  never  succeed  for  long ; 
after  every  such  period  of  a  bare  realism 
which  limits  itself  to  a  smaller  aim,  in  all 
men  not  wholly  superficial,  not  wholly 
submerged  in  the  world  of  sense,  there 
arises  with  irresistible  power  the  impulse 
to  investigate  anew  whether  and  how  far 
the  high  pretension  of  Christianity  to  be 
the  real,  the  unique  truth,  and  the  only 
truth  that  brings  happiness,  is  a  just  pre- 
tension. 

This  impulse  you  also  will  more  or  less 
experience ;  otherwise  you  would  not  have 
taken  in  your  hand  this  book,  which  had 
its  origin  in  that  same  impulse.  In  no  case 
thrust  the  impulse  back  from  the  thresh- 
old ;  for  it  springs  from  the  better  part 
of  your  nature. 

Accept,  rather,  one  more  bit  of  counsel : 
First  consider  more  closely  the  "prole- 
gomena" of  Christianity  —  those  prelimi- 
nary truths  which  it  considers  to  be  self- 
evident ;  its  dogmas  take  account  of  only 
afterward,  when  you  have  already  been 
able  to  resolve  to  live  up  to  these  pre- 

211 


liminary  truths  with  all  the  power  you 
have.  The  reverse  way  is,  to  be  sure,  the 
more  usual  one,  and  it  is  the  one  to  which 
we  are  wont  to  be  directed  in  our  schools 
and  churches.  But  if  this  more  usual 
course  is  taken,  now  and  then  there  lies 
"a  lion  in  the  way"  which  does  not 
appear  upon  the  path  proposed  in  this 
chapter. 

The  power  of  resolve,  of  course,  you 
will  always  be  obliged  to  have,  for  only 
"  he  who  overcometh  shall  inherit  all 
things  ; "  for  the  irresolute,  as  well  as  for 
those  completely  without  faith,  even  in 
the  most  favorable  case  only  the  decay 
of  their  personal  life  stands  in  near  and 
certain  prospect. 


212 


VIII.   THE   STEPS   OF   LIFE 


VIII.   THE   STEPS   OF    LIFE 

is  an  old  and  obvious 
fancy,  that  of  dividing 
the  inner  life  into  a  series 
of  steps,  or  of  describing 
it  in  the  allegorical  form 
of  a  pilgrimage  with  its 
various  stages  and  halts 
and  hindrances  of  one  sort  or  another. 
Yet  I  do  not  know  of  any  such  descrip- 
tion that  suits  the  needs  of  our  own  day, 
especially  the  needs  of  people  of  culture ; 
indeed,  it  is,  and  has  ever  been,  a  fault  of 
most  sermons  that  while  they  depict  life's 
attainable  ideal  with  more  or  less  exactness, 
they  are  noways  able  to  give  as  plain  an 
account  of  the  way  thither.  Yet  this  is  just 
the  service  (and  the  directions  should  be 
quite  specific,  too)  which  the  church,  it 
would  seem,  is  called  upon  to  perform 
for  the  present  generation.  What  is  known 
by  the  somewhat  distasteful  name  of  "  the 
cure  of  souls,"  so  far  as  it  exists  at  all,  has 
become  too  professional  (not  to  say  too 
commercial)  a  matter  with  the  churches  : 
in  the  things  of  the  spirit  there  is  nothing 
if  not  freedom  and  individuality ;  yet  it  is 
just  here  that  a  kind  of  rigid  technical  no- 
menclature has  been  devised,  with  expres- 
sions that  once  may  have  been  justified, 

215 


but  are  now  meaningless  to  many  men 
and  at  some  future  time  will  have  to  be 
replaced,  perhaps,  by  others. 

Of  the  writings  we  possess  on  the  un- 
folding of  the  inner  life  by  steps,  only  one 
has  come  down  to  us  from  classical  times ; 
this  is  an  essay  of  Plutarch,  the  Greek 
professor  of  philosophy  (as  we  should 
now  call  him),  who  was  born  at  Chaeronea 
in  Boeotia  about  50  A.D.,  and  died  be- 
tween 1 20  and  130  A.D.  at  Rome,  where, 
among  other  things,  he  is  said  to  have 
been  the  teacher  of  the  future  emperor 
Hadrian.  Of  his  hundred  and  more  writ- 
ings, some  shorter,  some  longer,  the 
"  Parallel  Lives  "  are  now  almost  the  only 
ones  read,  and  even  these  are  less  read 
in  the  schools  than  is  perhaps  proper. 
Of  the  rest,  which  are  usually  com- 
prised under  the  general  title  of  "  Plu- 
tarch's Ethical  Writings,"  one  of  the 
most  readable  is  that  dedicated  to  Sosius 
Senecio,  consul  under  Trajan,  —  "How 
One  may  be  Conscious  of  his  Progress  in 
Goodness."  On  the  whole,  it  exhibits  the 
Eclectic  view  (in  the  sense  of  Ciceronian 
Eclecticism)  as  contrasted  with  the  teach- 
ings of  the  Stoics,  who  only  recognize 
the  perfect  wise  man  who  observes  their 
principles,  on  the  one  hand,  and  on  the 
216 


other,  the  man  addicted  to  vice,  without 
intervening  transitional  grades.  In  this 
treatise,  as  each  reader  will  at  once  notice, 
there  is  a  special  lack  of  the  depth  which 
first  came  into  morals  through  Christianity 
(then  but  little  known  as  yet),  and  which 
will  always  come  into  morals  only  by  that 
path ;  but  it  possesses  in  considerable  de- 
gree a  sound  and  natural  human  good- 
sense,  which  is  directed  toward  the  nobler 
things  of  life,  and  whose  development  in 
youthful  temperaments  is  an  indispensable 
purpose  in  so-called  classical  culture. 

Of  the  later  writings  of  this  kind  the 
best  are  Bunyan's  "  Pilgrim's  Progress," 
a  book  from  the  great  Puritan  days  in 
England,  and  the  "  Homesickness "  of 
Jung-Stilling,  written  about  a  hundred 
years  ago.  In  reality,  the  biographies 
of  distinguished  men  should  render  this 
service  of  pointing  out  the  way  to  their 
contemporaries  and  successors ;  but  there 
are,  unhappily,  but  few  good  and  really 
true  writings  of  this  sort.  For  the  biog- 
raphers do  not  always  understand  the  in- 
most experiences  of  those  whose  lives  they 
are  describing,  many  of  which  experiences 
really  can  not  be  made  comprehensible  to 
them  in  their  full  significance,  since  they 
were  small  occurrences  with  great  conse- 

217 


quences.  Yet  the  autobiographies,  which 
could  tell  all  this,  are  usually  marred  with 
vanity  and  are  sometimes  the  least  true  of 
biographies.  It  will  therefore  be  well,  on 
the  whole,  to  recognize  that  in  all  these 
writings  the  individual  character  prepon- 
derates and  that  there  is  no  "  method  "  that 
reveals  the  proper  course  of  life.  The  most 
useful  thing  about  them,  perhaps,  is  the 
very  practical  observations  that  might  serve 
to  encourage  the  wanderer  on  this  much- 
travelled,  yet  universally  unknown,  way 
when  he  is  likely  to  become  weary,  or  to 
enlighten  him  when  the  continuation  of 
the  journey  appears  too  uncertain  or  too 
much  deflected  from  the  presumably  proper 
direction. 

It  is  first  of  all  to  be  said  that  every  life 
has  steps,  and  that  no  life  runs  from  be- 
ginning to  end  in  unchanging  uniformity 
like  a  clear,  murmuring  meadow-brook,  or 
in  a  straight  direction,  like  an  artificially 
contrived  canal.  But  no  life  perfectly  re- 
sembles another  in  its  course,  and  even 
the  apparently  most  natural  steps  often 
happen  in  the  reverse  order,  so  that  there 
are  men  who  in  their  youth  are  preternatu- 
rally  wise,  and  have  their  youthful  quali- 
ties only  when  old. 
218 


Yet  there  is  never  an  inwardly  healthy 
human  life  that  shows  no  visible  develop- 
ment at  all,  or  that  has  spurts  or  pauses  in 
it  that  are  wholly  arbitrary.  A  life  that 
proceeds  in  a  perfectly  normal  way  is  just 
as  rare,  but  in  every  life  there  are  mis- 
takes that  could  have  been  avoided,  and 
gaps  that  later  it  is  no  longer  possible  to 
fill  out. 

For  every  period  in  life  has  its  purpose 
and  its  task.  In  spring  the  tree  must  do 
little  more  than  grow  and  blossom,  but  not 
bear  fruit  as  yet.  The  fruits  one  produces 
on  the  modern  dwarfed  trees,  purposely 
hindered  in  their  natural  growth  and 
designed  merely  for  a  speedy  production 
of  fruit,  acquire  neither  the  good  quality 
nor,  apparently,  the  soundness  of  fruits 
ripened  on  trees  that  have  attained  their 
natural  full  growth. 

The  various  periods  of  life,  then,  must 
deposit  and  store  away  in  the  human  being 
each  a  product  peculiar  to  itself;  in  child- 
hood the  childlike  nature,  without  which 
a  man  never  becomes  a  well-rounded  man, 
exerting  a  kindly  influence  upon  other 
men ;  in  youth  that  freshness  and  enthu- 
siasm of  spirit  which  begets  the  power 
of  doing  things  ;  in  manhood  and  woman- 
hood the  fulness  and  ripeness  of  all  the 

219 


thoughts  and  feelings,  and  the  firmness 
that  springs  from  a  character  steeled  by 
deeds  already  achieved.  Only  thus  can  age 
also  do  its  worthy  task,  not  in  falling  into 
disconsolate  decay,  but  in  the  quiet  posses- 
sion and  contemplation  of  what  life  was 
and  should  be,  and  in  the  preparation  for 
a  greater  and  broader  development. 

Whoever  skips  any  such  period,  or,  as 
is  more  frequently  the  case,  hastens  over 
it  and  makes  no  use  of  its  peculiar  advan- 
tages, will  seldom  or  never  be  in  a  position 
to  retrieve  it  later,  but  will  always  have  a 
very  perceptible  deficiency  in  his  make- 
up. 

To  prevent  this  in  younger  years  is  a 
matter  of  education,  of  which  I  will  not 
speak  here,  but  in  later  life  it  is  one  of  the 
chief  aspects  of  that  self-training  to  which 
a  man  is  indebted  for  the  real  acquisitions 
of  life  more  than  to  all  the  things  that 
others  can  do  for  him. 

In  reference  to  its  general  character,  in 
the  aspect  which  one  usually  calls  happi- 
ness or  unhappiness,  or  a  hard  or  easy  lot, 
experience  shows  (and  in  most  cases  very 
plainly)  that  every  life  consists  of  three 
divisions,  of  which  the  first  and  the  third 
are  alike  and  the  second  unlike.  Whoever 
220 


has  had  a  hard,  unhappy  youth  is  more 
likely  to  have  a  more  favorable  and  suc- 
cessful manhood,  but  scarcely  a  cloudless 
end.  On  the  other  hand,  when  the  days  of 
youth  are  golden,  they  are  almost  always 
the  precursor  of  exertions  and  storms  in 
the  middle  part  of  life,  on  which  there 
follows  a  quieter  evening  of  age.  Often- 
times this  distinction  also  holds  good  for 
the  minor  steplike  subdivisions  of  these 
three  great  divisions. 

Which  is  the  happier  case  may  well  be 
doubtful.  Very  energetic  men  fond  of 
activity,  who  are  substantially  minded  not 
to  let  "  the  vestiges  of  their  earthly  days 
vanish  in  the  aeons/1  will  be  disposed  to 
lay  the  greater  value  upon  a  successful 
manhood ;  but  sunny-natured  men  need 
an  untroubled  youth  and  likewise  a  rougher 
middle  period,  if  they  are  to  be  strong 
enough  to  exhibit  in  their  age  the  pattern 
of  a  fully  ripened  life,  perfected  in  every 
direction,  so  far  as  lies  in  the  power  of 
man.  Once  in  his  life,  at  any  rate,  a  man 
must  have  it  hard  and  heavy  if  he  is  to 
attain  to  the  right  way  himself  and  to  gain 
an  understanding  of  the  burdens  of  others  ; 
and  on  the  whole  a  strong  old  age  is  best 
suited  for  that.  And  if  the  childhood  days 
have  been  joyous,  they  afford  an  afterglow 

221 


for  the  whole  life,  and  in  the  reverse  case, 
a  bitter  feeling  of  wrong.  It  is  likewise 
difficult  to  be  obliged,  for  the  first  time,  to 
bear  the  hardest  lot  of  all  in  old  age. 

One  can  not  change  the  form  of  this  lot ; 
in  this  respect,  at  least,  a  man  is  surely  not 
the  moulder  of  his  own  happiness  ;  only, 
he  is  not  the  inert  slave  of  a  blind  Fate 
either.  That  is,  if  a  hard  youth  predestines 
him  to  an  old  age  not  quite  without  care,  he 
can  make  the  best  of  this  destiny  by  a  clear 
and  conscious  submission  and  a  courageous 
endurance  ;  or  if  he  has  a  beautiful  child- 
hood behind  him,  he  can  be  thankful  that 
it  did  not  continue  on  thus  into  that 
stormy  period  of  later  life  which  is  neces- 
sary for  the  steeling*  of  his  character.  Thus 
conceived,  even  in  these  destinies  the  bold 
saying  turns  out  to  be  exactly  true,  that  to 
those  who  love  God  all  the  events  of  life, 
of  whatever  sort  they  may  be,  must  turn 
out  to  their  advantage.  But  in  the  lives  of 
all  thinking  men  the  question  to  be  decided 
is  this  :  whether  to  choose  much  sorrow 
with  much  help  from  God,  or  much  sorrow 
without  such  help,  but  with  the  temporary 
forgetfulness  of  momentary  pleasure.  The 
impotent  Nietzschean  revolt  against  such 
a  fate  for  men  helps  nothing. 

Finally,  one  can  not  make  of  himself 

222 


something  quite  different  from  the  native 
stuff  that  is  in  him.  It  is  not  proper  that 
every  one  should  be  able  to  become  every- 
thing; a  very  extended  many-sidedness 
comes  often  only  at  the  expense  of  depth. 
At  the  proper  time  rightly  to  criticise  one- 
self in  order  to  correct  the  many  errors  of 
education,  which  only  very  rarely  estimates 
a  human  being  quite  correctly —  this  is  the 
chief  task  of  the  most  decisive  point  of 
life.  This  point,  if  life  has  proceeded  quite 
normally,  is  at  the  beginning  of  the  thirties, 
when  the  man  has  the  last  step  of  educa- 
tion behind  him,  and  now,  "in  the  mid- 
way of  this  our  mortal  life/*  begins  his 
self-training,  for  good  or  for  bad.  At  this 
moment  of  life  some  recognize,  with  deep 
pain  of  soul,  that  they  can  not  become  all 
that  to  which  the  dreams  of  youth  or  the 
advantages  of  birth  and  education  seemed 
to  destine  them,  and  they  turn  in  despair 
to  pleasure  or  to  pretence.  But  others 
resolutely  seek  the  point  whence  they 
may  conquer  their  special  world,  and 
henceforth  pursue  a  destiny  which,  perhaps, 
was  not  sung  to  them  at  their  cradle,  but 
which  shows  itself,  nevertheless,  to  be  the 
right  one. 

On  the  whole,  however,  the  dreams  of 
youth    are    not  to  be  despised.  In    most 

223 


cases  they  point  to  an  unconscious  native^/ 
ability  and  so  likewise  to  the  dreamer's 
destination,  which  expresses  itself  at  first 
in  fantastic  pictures  of  the  future  ;  that  is, 
in  so  far  as  they  really  come  from  within 
and  are  not  the  products  of  a  false  educa- 
tion or  of  a  mistaken  belief  in  the  inherit- 
ance of  talents.  For  it  is  only  quite  rarely 
that  talents  are  inherited  and  that  the  sons 
of  great  men  are  themselves  great.  This  is, 
to  be  sure,  often  made  difficult  for  them 
because  of  comparison  with  their  fathers, 
and  not  less  because  of  the  jealousy  of 
men,  who  do  not  willingly  suffer  intellectual 
dynasties  to  rule  among  them  ;  in  this  they 
are  all  republicans.  On  the  other  hand, 
men  of  much  consequence  seldom  have  or 
take  the  time  to  busy  themselves  intently 
with  the  bringing  up  of  their  children,  and 
in  such  families,  much  oftener  than  in  far 
simpler  ones,  the  children  fall  into  neglect, 
unless  a  mother  of  sufficient  intelligence 
steps  in,  and  is  not  herself  too  much 
busied  with  her  celebrated  and  often  very 
exacting  husband. 

It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  say  further 
that  the  mothers  are  the  deciding  element 
of  the  family  for  the  education  and  the 
formation  of  the  character  of  the  children, 
especially  the  sons,  and  that  the  sons,  as  a 
224 


rule,  take  after  them  more  than  after  the 
fathers.  It  is  a  less  familiar  fact  that  the 
sons  often  resemble  the  mother's  brothers 
in  character  and  natural  ability,  and  that 
the  best  though  sometimes  also  the  most 
dangerous  moulders  of  one's  youth  are  the 
grandmothers  on  the  mother's  side. 

The  promise  of  a  curse  upon  families 
that  have  shown  themselves  egotistical  for 
several  succeeding  generations  surely  comes 
true  ;  and  experience  shows  that  a  want 
of  love  towards  one's  parents  is  avenged 
through  one's  own  children,  and,  vice 
versay  a  peculiar  blessing  throughout  life 
accompanies  those  who  have  shown  their 
parents  much  love. 

There  is  no  need  to  be  anxious  about 
the  proper  time  for  entering  upon  new 
steps  of  life,  if  the  earlier  ones  have  been 
rightly  used ;  they  will  then  do  their  own 
announcing  through  first  an  inner  sum- 
mons, and  finally  a  definite  determination, 
to  advance  farther,  and  without  this 
experience  it  could  not  be  well  for  any  one 
to  be  in  a  higher  plane.  We  can  not  stand 
a  task  that  is  yet  too  great  for  us ;  such  a 
task  we  feel  to  be  too  ethereal,  and  we 
long  for  the  coarser  elements  of  life.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  divinely-led  man  does  not 
as  a  rule  know  very  long  beforehand  what 
Q  225 


he  has  to  do  next  or  to  what  he  will  be 
called ;  he  could  not  commonly  endure  it. 
But  any  one  who  has  already  really  ex- 
perienced many  such  instances  of  being 
personally  guided  in  life  will  at  last  be  sure 
in  his  faith  as  to  the  existence  of  such  a 
higher  guidance  even  in  the  life  of  indi- 
vidual men,  while  others  (by  their  own 
fault,  to  be  sure)  count  only  in  the  mass, 
not  as  individuals. 

Finally,  steps  in  the  inner  life  are  not, 
of  course,  for  those  to  whom  life  means 
nothing  else  than  eating  and  drinking  and 
dying  to-morrow.  The  steps  of  the  inner 
life  exist  rather  only  for  those  who  are 
resolved  to  struggle  out  of  a  merely 
natural  existence  common  to  many  others, 
on  through  to  a  really  spiritual  life. 

For  these,  Thomas  a  Kempis  points 
out  the  safest  way  in  the  following  dia- 
logue : 

MY  SON,  the  perfect  freedom  of  the  spirit  thou 
canst  not  win  nor  keep,  if  thou  press  not  through 
to  the  complete  renunciation  of  thyself. 

Slave-chains  are  borne  by  all  who  cling  to  some- 
thing selfishly,  who  love  themselves,  who  desire  the 
outer  world  with  eagerness  and  longing  and  curiosity, 
who  seek  the  things  that  flatter  the  senses  and  not  the 
things  that  further  the  Kingdom  of  Christ,  who  will 
always  build  and  strengthen  what  yet  hath  no  founda- 
226 


tion  ;  for  everything  falleth  into  nothingness  that  is  not 
born  of  God. 

Hold  thyself  to  this  short  saying,  for  it  meaneth 
much  :  Forsake  all,  and  thou  findest  all. 

Bid  farewell  to  every  desire ;  then  enterest  thou 
upon  rest.  Let  this  word  never  leave  thy  thoughts  ; 
bear  it  within  thee  day  and  night ;  and  when  thou  hast 
brought  it  to  fulfilment,  then  shalt  thou  understand 
all. 

But  this,  O  LORD,  is  not  the  work  of  a  single  day, 
nor  is  it  child's  play.  In  this  shell  lies  the  whole  kernel 
of  the  perfection  of  those  who  seek  God. 

SON,  that  must  not  frighten  thee  back,  nor  dis- 
courage thee,  but  rather  draw  thee  to  climb  upward 
to  the  higher  goal,  or  at  the  least  to  bear  a  longing 
thereto  in  thy  heart.  If  thou  wert  already  so  far  on 
the  way  that  thou  wert  free  from  all  blind  love  to 
thyself,  and  wert  ready  and  prepared  to  obey  every 
beck  of  thy  fatherly  superior  whom  I  have  set  over 
thee,  then  might  mine  eye  rest  with  pleasure  upon 
thee,  and  thy  whole  life  would  flow  along  in  peace 
and  joy.  For  as  soon  as  thou  no  longer  wishest  this 
or  that  in  thine  own  self-conceit,  but  shalt  have 
yielded  thyself  wholly  to  thy  Gcd  without  gainsay 
and  from  the  innermost  depth  of  thy  heart,  and  shalt 
have  laid  down  all  thy  wishes  into  the  hand  of  God, 
from  that  moment  onward  shalt  thou  be  at  rest,  and 
shalt  find  thyself  at  one  with  God,  in  that  no  other 
thing  shall  be  to  thee  so  agreeable  and  pleasing  as 
God's  pleasure. 

Whoever  hath  thus,  in  simplicity  of  heart,  swung  his 
thoughts  upward  to  God,  and  hath  loosed  himself 
from  the  inordinate  love  or  hate  of  any  created  thing, 
he  alone  shall  be  fit  and  worthy  to  receive  the  gift  of 
devotion.  For  where  the  Lord  findeth  empty  vessels, 

227 


there  He  layeth  in  his  blessing.  And  the  more  com- 
pletely any  one  looseneth  his  heart  from  the  love  of 
that  which  perisheth,  and  the  more  completely  he 
maketh  his  own  self  to  waste  away  under  deepest 
disregard,  by  so  much  the  quicker  cometh  this  mercy, 
by  so  much  the  deeper  it  presseth  in,  and  by  so  much 
the  higher  the  free  heart  of  man  is  lifted  up. 

Then  the  eyes  of  man  are  opened,  then  standeth 
he  amazed  in  rapture,  then  his  whole  heart  is  dilated, 
for  the  hand  of  the  Lord  is  now  with  him,  and  he 
hath  given  himself  wholly  and  for  all  eternity  into 
His  hand.  Lo,  thus  is  that  man  blest  who  seeketh 
God  with  his  whole  heart,  and  letteth  his  spirit  no 
longer  cling  to  the  things  that  perish. 

I 

Everything  spoken  in  this  dialogue  is 
wholly  true ;  only  it  is  not  merely  not  the 
work  of  a  single  day,  but  not  even  the 
work  of  a  single  life-period ;  it  is  rather 
an  uncompromising  process  of  growth 
that  can  not  be  hastened  at  will,  but  must 
gradually  unfold  itself  in  four  great  stages 
and  must  furthermore  be  properly  brought 
to  maturity  in  each  separate  period,  if  any 
real  and  beneficial  good  is  to  arise  there- 
from. There  may  be  no  compulsion  about 
it ;  a  hastening  of  growth  occurs  only  in 
times  of  suffering  ;  the  first  half  of  every 
task  is  mostly  the  hardest ;  from  that 
point  onward  it  goes  more  quickly  and 
easily  to  the  end. 
228 


The  first  stage  is  the  seeking  for  a 
philosophy  of  life,  and  the  dissatisfaction 
with  the  usual  conceptions  of  the  uni- 
verse :  "  How  many  hired  servants  of  my 
father's  have  bread  enough  and  to  spare, 
and  I  perish  here  with  hunger ! "  The 
second  is  the  turning  to  the  eternal,  super- 
natural truth :  cc  Look  unto  me  and  be  ye 
saved,  all  the  ends  of  the  earth ;  for  I  am 
God,  and  there  is  none  else."  The  third 
stage  is  the  new  life  which  must  gradually 
take  shape  therefrom,  though  falling  into 
many  divisions.  And  the  last  has  the 
promise  of  the  prophet  Zechariah  :  "  At 
evening  time  there  shall  be  light."  Out  of 
the  first  stage  the  youthful  man  must  pass 
with  pure  thoughts  directed  toward  an 
ideal,  with  no  stigma  of  immorality  upon 
his  conscience,  with  pleasure  in  work,  and 
with  a  considerable  amount  of  knowledge 
useful  for  his  life-calling.  If  the  second 
period  is  rightly  spent,  it  will  be  devoted 
to  the  acquisition  of  three  important  things  : 
position  as  a  citizen  of  the  state,  a  worthy 
marriage,  and  a  sound  religious  and  philo- 
sophical view  of  life.  The  third  stage  is 
that  of  the  confirmation  of  this  view  in 
the  struggle  of  life ;  this  stage  forms  the 
real  work  of  life.  The  fourth  is  the 
crowning  of  life  with  true  success,  and 

229 


the    final  transition  to  a  larger  sphere  of 
activity. 

It  is  clear  from  the  beginning  that  this 
course  of  development  really  rests  upon 
self-training,  and  usually  takes  its  start  in 
that  period  of  life  in  which  every  earnest 
man  is  tired  of  the  "  fables  of  the  world  " 
and  is  in  the  same  frame  of  mind  in  which 
Dante  has  his  great  poem  begin  with 
the  words :  "  In  the  midway  of  this  our 
mortal  life,  I  found  me  in  a  gloomy  wood 
astray;"  or  in  which  St.  Theresa  says: 
"  My  soul  was  submerged  in  the  dream 
of  earthly  things,  but  it  has  pleased  the 
Lord  to  awaken  me  from  this  slumber  of 
death,  and  I  beseech  Him  nevermore  to 
let  me  fall  back  therein."  What  education 
can  do  up  to  this 'point  is,  as  regards  the 
inner  life,  merely  of  a  preparatory  and 
prophylactic  nature,  and  consists  in  keep- 
ing the  young  human  being  away  from 
a  wholly  materialistic  conception  of  the 
world,  as  well  as  from  a  merely  formal 
religion,  both  of  which  would  make  diffi- 
cult his  later  approach  to  a  true  philo- 
sophical and  religious  conviction.  Such 
children  as  are  educated  in  the  natural 
sciences  alone,  as  well  as  those  who  have 
heard  of  Christianity  too  early  and  too 
230 


often,  or  have  been  trained  to  make  use 
of  religious  expressions  and  forms  me- 
chanically (often  against  the  grain),  only 
rarely  grow  up  to  be  men  who  later  have 
the  power  of  finding  the  way  of  peace.  It 
is  the  especial  task  of  education  to  keep 
the  young  soul  free  from  the  strain  of 
immorality,  and  inclined  toward  a  purer 
life  than  one  that  is  based  merely  upon 
the  senses.  The  soil  on  which  the  noble 
plant  of  a  true  religion  should  later  take 
root  and  flourish  is  rendered  unfit  for  that 
purpose  by  nothing  so  much  as  by  the 
dominance  of  sensuality.  The  soaring-power 
of  the  spirit  is  thereby  broken,  and  is  re- 
generated again  only  with  difficulty  and  par- 
tially, if  at  all.  With  this,  we  return  to  the 
thought  already  expressed  elsewhere,  that 
for  the  education  of  those  who  are  to  be 
given  a  higher  culture  (for  the  boys,  at 
least,  and  probably  also  for  their  mothers 
and  governesses  and  women  teachers)  the 
so-called  classical  education  is  indispen- 
sable, and  on  the  whole  to  be  preferred  to 
the  ordinary  religious  and  moral  instruc- 
tion. Christianity  then  comes  easily  of 
itself,  later  on,  if  any  one  has  honestly 
traversed  this  stage  of  instruction  in  the 
classical  philosophy  (which  can  not  and 
should  not  be  the  final  stage);  and,  as 

23 1 


<fjt 

history  has  shown,  Christianity  bears  its 
finest  fruits  upon  a  classical  substratum. 
In  particular,  a  classically  educated  spirit 
will  never  be  able  to  sink  into  mere  eccle- 
siasticism,  and  still  less  into  the  insipidi- 
ties and  the  trivialities  which,  much  as  they 
are  foreign  to  the  great  and  noble  nature 
of  pristine  Christianity,  nevertheless,  to  its 
immense  harm,  cling  to  the  quite  com- 
mon conception  of  it. 

Besides,  Christianity  undoubtedly  con- 
tains an  element  of  alienation  from  the 
world,  an  element  that  can  not  be  so  suit- 
able for  the  education  of  a  young  human 
being  still  intent  upon  the  growth  of  all 
his  intellectual  faculties,  as  it  is  for  the 
self-training  that  comes  later.  Indeed,  one 
may  go  so  far  as  to  say  that  physical  well- 
being  (though  by  no  means  the  highest 
form  of  feeling  nor  the  highest  destiny), 
and  a  certain  human  impulse  to  self-exalta- 
tion (which  later  finds  its  limit  in  the  true 
humility  of  Christianity)  are  natural  and 
even  necessary  to  the  growth  of  youth, 
and  for  this  very  reason  the  classical  ex- 
amples and  ideals  (and  those  of  the  Old 
Testament  also,  of  course)  fit  in  better 
with  this  period  than  do  those  of  the 
Christian  era.  Only,  the  classical  education 
must  be  adapted  to  the  circumstances  of 
232 


the  pupils'  environment,  or  this  environ- 
ment must  itself  be  able  to  be  elevated  at 
the  same  time,  or  it  will  often  make  the 
pupils  discontented  with  their  lot.  In- 
deed, it  is  even  as  Flattich  rightly  pointed 
out  of  old  in  the  naive  words,  "  Youth 
must  have  its  time  of  raging,  though  not 
wickedly  so ; "  and  for  those  who  do  not 
have  this  period  in  youth,  it  often  comes 
afterward,  only  worse  and  more  secretly. 

When  education  has  planted  in  the 
young  human  being  a  disposition  inclined 
toward  the  ideal,  and  has  begotten  in  him 
an  aversion  to  all  that  is  vulgar,  together 
with  some  good  life-habits,  then  it  has  per- 
formed its  most  important  duty.  At  pres- 
ent, indeed,  it  wants  to  do  more  than  this, 
but  in  reality  it  accomplishes  less. 

Two  things  must  be  made  particularly 
clear  to  the  young  man  at  the  conclusion 
of  the  first  life-period :  in  the  first  place, 
within  the  limits  of  natural  laws  men  attain 
to  everything,  so  to  speak,  that  they  ear- 
nestly desire.  Only,  they  must  begin  at 
the  right  time,  must  proceed  in  the  right 
order,  and  must  above  all  things  not  chase 
two  hares  at  once.  To  become  rich,  re- 
nowned, learned,  or  virtuous,  there  is  need 
in  every  case  of  a  single-minded  and 
orderly  struggle  that  suffers  no  compe- 

233 


tition  of  some  rival  purpose.  One  must 
therefore  know  what  one  wants  to  be,  and 
choose  the  right  thing  as  early  as  possible. 
Then  "  the  man  grows,  of  himself,  along 
with  his  greater  aims."  Without  these,  he 
is  vainly  tempted  to  seek  his  development 
in  the  artificial  forcing-beds  of  education. 

The  way  in  which  this  subjectivity  (not 
wrong  at  the  first)  comes  to  an  end  is  not 
one  that  can  be  exactly  determined,  either 
as  to  the  time  the  end  takes  place  or  as  to 
the  cause  that  brings  it  about.  The  change 
usually  begins  with  premonitions  which 
eventually  become  strong  impressions. 
These  are  often  called  forth  merely  by 
isolated  words  which  sometimes  have  been 
spoken  by  men,  apparently  by  chance,  but 
are  more  frequently  derived  from  reading. 
Books  that  fall  into  a  man's  hand  at  just 
the  right  time  are  nowadays  most  fre- 
quently the  instrumentality  of  the  sum- 
mons to  a  "higher  life.  Many  a  time,  also, 
the  soul  suddenly,  in  moments  of  eleva- 
tion, sees  itself  transported  to  a  quite  dif- 
ferent plane  from  that  on  which  it  really 
lives.  It  espies,  as  often  happens  to  the 
mountain-wanderer,  a  new  and  beautiful 
region  quite  near  before  it,  but  which  is 
still  separated  from  its  present  standing- 
ground  by  a  vast  chasm,  over  which  a 

234 


bridge  leads,  but  only  far  below  in  the 
depths. 

In  this  period  isolated  experiences  also 
occur  which  may  be  classed  as  strange,  as 
hard  to  be  described,  and  as  by  no  means 
essential  to  development.  On  this  point 
mystic  writers  say  that  there  are  three 
kinds  of  more  intimate  union  with  the 
divine :  first,  the  quite  regular  kind  (thus 
already  understood  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment), that  comes  through  submission 
and  sincere  love,  a  union  that  always 
remains  open  in  its  nature,  that  nothing 
can  interrupt  save  a  man's  own  will  con- 
tending against  the  will  of  God,  and  that 
is  at  once  reestablished  as  soon  as  the  will 
is  again  accordant ;  second,  an  extraordi- 
nary kind,  that  comes  through  devout 
contemplation,  which  can  not,  however,  be 
artificially  produced,  but  which  is  only 
a  yet  greater  affection  of  the  heart,  waiting 
in  patience  and  humility  for  the  response 
that  God  will  perhaps  give  thereto ;  and 
lastly,  a  still  more  sensitive  feeling  of 
nearness  to  God,  coming  for  the  most 
part  quite  unexpectedly,  but,  of  all  the 
three,  the  least  necessary  and  important 
for  the  progress  of  the  inner  life. 

The  end  of  the  first  stage  of  life  is  not 
satisfying  —  can  not  and  should  not  be. 

235 


All  subjectivity  is  a  form  of  thinking  that 
ends  in  dissatisfaction,  and  the  nobler  the 
soul,  the  more  quickly  and  deeply  it  falls 
into  it.  Along  with  this  there  very  often 
comes  a  certain  failure  in  the  outer  life, 
almost  enigmatical ;  the  cause  is  given  in 
very  picturesque  language  by  an  Israelitic 
prophet,  Hosea,  "  I  will  hedge  up  the 
way  with  thorns,  and  I  will  make  a  fence 
against  her,  that  she  shall  not  find  her 
paths."  It  is  the  genuine  mercy  of  God 
when  every  false  way  a  man  wishes  to 
strike  into  is  hedged  with  thorns ;  or  when 
he,  in  another  beautiful  Israelitic  simile, 
like  a  lily  among  thorns,  can  find  his  growth 
only  straight  upward.  Those  are  the  sor- 
rows of  youth  for  which  later  one  is 
most  thankful. 

Nevertheless,  because  of  these  things 
a  certain  sadness  masters  the  soul,  and 
but  few  noteworthy  men  are  to  be  found 
who  have  not  temporarily  suffered  melan- 
choly in  their  youth.  Even  at  best,  they 
live  in  the  mood  which  Goethe  depicts  in 
the  words : 

So  still  and  thoughtful  ?  Something  Is  lacking ;  freely 

confess, 

"Contented  am  /,  but  'tis  not  well  with  me,  neverthe- 
less. " 
236 


But,  as  every  brave  young  soul  sees, 
life  is  not  given  us  with  the  purpose  that 
we  may  always  be  only  "  still  and  thought- 
ful," nor  that  we  may  consume  ourselves 
in  disconsolate  complaints  or  in  the  pes- 
simism that  wastes  the  soul's  powers. 
Those  are  the  conditions  that  attend 
transition,  and  must  appear.  A  new  life 
must  spring  therefrom,  but  one  feels, 
indeed,  that  a  kind  of  death  first  lies 
between. 

This  is  the  surrender  of  the  personal 
will,  intent  upon  the  selfish  life ;  this  will 
a  man  renounces  with  so  much  difficulty 
that  Calvin  was  able  to  found  upon  this 
fact  his  doctrine  of  a  formal  predestination 
of  some  to  this  development  of  his  true 
existence,  and  of  others  to  a  loss  of  it.  But 
every  such  death,  for  those  who  bear 
within  them  the  seed  of  an  eternal  life, 
is  not  the  final  goal,  but  the  means  to 
a  new  and  higher  development  of  life. 
Whoever  is  unable  to  hold  fast  to  this 
hope  with  the  tenacity  with  which  Job 
clung  to  it,  and  yet  is  no  longer  able 
to  find  any  satisfaction  in  the  world  of 
the  senses,  falls  now  into  a  gloomy 
asceticism  which  is  forever  shovelling  at 
his  grave ;  or  into  an  idle  dialogue  (in 
diaries  and  letters)  with  his  painful  dis- 

237 


satisfaction  with  the  universe ;  or  into  the 
confused  Buddhistic  longing  for  some  Nir- 
vana; or,  finally,  into  one  of  the  various 
other  aberrations  of  the  human  spirit, 
which  all  agree  only  in  considering  the 
true  way  as  an  impossible  or  fantastic 
one. 

At    this   point   of  life,  for  a  time,  the 
word  of  salvation  is,  Forward ! 

II 

At  about  the  middle  of  a  man's  life, 
and  often  the  most  quickly  in  the  case 
of  the  best  and  most  successful  lives, 
there  comes  a  moment  of  dissatisfaction 
with  all  that  has  hitherto  been  attained. 
This  is  more  frequently  the  case  among 
the  cultured  than  among  the  other  classes, 
because  the  continuous  struggle  of  the 
latter  for  existence  partly  spares  them  this 
dissatisfaction  and  more  clearly  shows  the 
way  to  free  themselves  from  it.  When,  at 
this  time,  any  one  stands  quite  at  the 
exit-gates  of  earthly  existence,  all  human 
concerns  appear  to  him  literally  nothing 
worth,  and  he  would  never  feel  kindly 
toward  them  again,  even  in  their  highest 
activities,  if  the  wisdom  of  this  world  did 
not  bring  him  back  into  the  belief  that 
these  are  only  morbid  sensations  that 
238 


must  be  overcome  by  a  feeling  of  ro- 
bust vitality.  This,  to  be  sure,  they  must 
do,  but  not  unless  a  real  death  of  the 
selfish  nature  precedes ;  upon  such  a  death 
the  most  in  every  human  life  depends, 
although  this  event  does  not  always  come 
to  pass  in  just  the  same  form.  The  same 
feeling,  however,  is  present  in  all  nobler 
souls,  that  they  do  not  get  forward  with 
their  "  intentions  to  do  better,"  but  daily 
find  new  hindrances  in  themselves  and 
in  the  surrounding  world ;  and  that,  in 
their  own  nature,  what  is  lacking  is  not 
the  dream,  indeed,  but  the  power  of  attain- 
ing an  existence  truly  worthy  of  man. 
Those  are  conditions  that  often  last  for 
years ;  in  their  later  period  arise  thoughts 
which,  to  some,  make  this  process  seem 
to  resemble  the  ascent  of  a  mountain. 

But  this  ascending  of  the  mountain  does 
not  always  lead  to  the  true  summit  it  is 
designed  for,  even  in  the  case  of  the  best 
men,  and  in  this  respect,  also,  one  is 
tempted  to  believe  in  predestination. 
Another  mountain-peak  which  is  some- 
times attained  is  a  noble  scepticism, 
such  as  Gottfried  Keller  gives  expression 
to  in  the  touching  words  that,  at  some 
time  or  other  in  life,  one  must  accustom 
himself  to  the  thought  of  a  real  death, 


and  that  if  he  then  gathers  himself  to- 
gether, he  does  not  become  any  the  worse 
man  therefor.  Certainly  not,  only  he  is  no 
perfectly  satisfied  man,  with  the  thirst  for 
truth  and  eternal  life  slaked ;  that  is  a 
goal  which  the  most  beautiful  sceptical 
philosophy  never  reaches. 

Doubting  thought  stands  on  a  still 
higher  plane  in  "The  Holy  Grail"  of  Ten- 
nyson : 

"  Thereafter,  the  dark  warning  of  our  King, 
That  most  of  us  would  follow  wandering  fires, 
Came  like  a  driving  gloom  across  my  mind : 
Then  every  evil  word  I  had  spoken  once, 
And  every  evil  thought  I  had  thought  of  old, 
And  every  evil  deed  I  ever  did, 
Awoke  and  cried:  c  This  §uest  is  not  for  thee. ' ' 

Beyond  this  thought  the  most  earnest 
and  sincere  souls  would  never  get,  if  it 
were  not  for  the  solution  which  the  Eng- 
lish poet  himself  offers  at  the  conclusion 
of  his  profound  poem  : 

"  Let  visions  of  the  night  or  of  the  day 
Come,  as  they  will ;  and  many  a  time  they  come, 
Until  this  earth  he  walks  on  seems  not  earth, 
This  light  that  strikes  his  eyeball  is  not  light, 
This  air  that  smites  his  forehead  is  not  air 
But  vision — yea,  his  very  hand  and  foot  — 
240 


In  moments  when  he  feels  he  can  not  die, 
And  knows  himself  no  vision  to  himself, 
Nor  the  high  God  a  vision,  nor  that  One 
Who  rose  again" 

It  is  very  strange  that  a  matter  that  has 
been  in  existence  for  almost  two  thousand 
years,  that  has  already  busied  the  minds 
and  hearts  of  millions  of  teachers  and 
writers,  and  that  has  been  borne  with  great 
cost  and  exertions  over  seas  and  preached 
to  nations  to  whom  it  was  unknown,  has 
become  unfamiliar  in  its  own  place  of 
dominion  and  among  the  most  cultured 
nations  of  the  globe.  Or  can  we  asseverate 
that  the  spirit,  or,  let  us  say,  even  the 
thought,  of  Christianity  is  something  that 
is  generally  known  and  acknowledged  in 
our  European  states  ? 

Far  removed  from  this  view,  some  with- 
in so-called  Christendom,  like  the  Roman 
procurator  Festus,  hold  Christianity  to  be 
a  sort  of  more  or  less  harmless  superstition 
concerning  "  one  Jesus,  who  was  dead, 
whom  Paul  affirmed  to  be  alive  "  ;  others 
regard  it  as  a  society  which  it  is  the  proper 
thing  to  belong  to,  without  necessarily 
having  any  further  interest  in  it ;  a  third 
class  looks  upon  it  as  a  hierarchy  of  priests 
which,  for  reasons  mostly  external,  they 
either  reverence  or  abhor.  To  yet  others  it 
R  241 


is  a  science  called  theology,  to  penetrate 
which  there  is  need  of  very  long  courses  of 
study  and  many  examinations.  And  when 
they  come  to  the  particulars  in  the  "  struc- 
ture of  doctrine/'  not  many  among  the 
learned  wholly  agree  as  to  what  faith  is,  or 
mercy,  or  the  significance  of  the  "  sacrifice 
of  Christ,"  whether  there  is  predestination 
and  eternal  punishment,  or  a  "  restoration 
of  all  things,"  or  what  are  the  methodical 
steps  one  must  take,  to  be  saved.  Every 
one  who  ventures  into  these  labyrinths 
of  theological  and  philosophical  thought, 
without  at  the  same  time  possessing  a  very 
decided  aspiration  toward  the  highest 
truth  and  a  very  sound  understanding  of 
human  nature,  is  apparently  in  danger  of 
losing  the  one  or  the  other.  And  so,  thou- 
sands of  the  most  cultured  men  of  our  day 
have,  in  fact,  given  up  making  any  further 
trial  of  what  seems  to  be  joined  with  only 
trouble,  contention,  doubt,  and  renuncia- 
tion of  the  natural  enjoyments  of  life,  only 
to  lead,  at  the  end,  to  nothing  other  than 
a  kind  of  human  slavery,  without  any 
better  assurance  than  before.  Christianity 
is  now,  for  the  greater  part  of  Christians, 
a  doctrine  of  the  churches  and  the  schools, 
which  one  listens  to  as  long  as  one  must, 
but  from  which  a  cultured  man  will  in- 
242 


wardly  free  himself  as  quickly  as  possible, 
even  if  he  still  outwardly  believes  he  must 
allow  himself  to  fit  into  forms  of  the 
social  life  when  once  they  have  become 
historical. 

The  simple  answer  to  this  is  that  we 
can  neither  dispense  with  Christianity  nor 
put  something  in  its  place.  We  do  not 
know  (and  it  would  be  useless  to  wish  to 
discover)  what  would  have  become  of  the 
civilized  world,  if  Christianity  had  not 
appeared  in  it  when  it  did  ;  but  it  is  cer- 
tain that  we  can  no  longer  get  away  from 
it  now,  nor  ignore  it,  but  we  must  reckon 
with  it  as  with  something  that  will  endure, 
yet  can  not  be  wholly  explained  by  science. 
True,  science  can  not  be  prevented  from 
discovering,  as  completely  as  possible, 
everything  that  is  knowable,  or  from  ex- 
tending the  sphere  of  the  knowable  as 
widely  as  possible ;  that  is  its  right  and 
its  duty.  With  this  there  goes,  in  the 
conception  of  particular  minds,  the  sup- 
position that  everything  is  knowable  that 
concerns  mankind,  or  that,  at  any  rate, 
everything  can  be  made  knowable  in 
time.  This  is  the  basis  of  a  considerable 
part  of  the  courage  and  the  perseverance 
found  in  scientific  investigation.  But  just 
as  little  may  it  be  forbidden  us  to  doubt 

243 


that  men  will  ever  succeed  in  completely 
fathoming  human  nature  in  all  its  re- 
lationships to  the  universal  Being  and 
in  its  connection  with  all  things;  but  even 
so,  it  is  the  duty  (and  of  cultured  people 
most  of  all)  nevertheless,  to  stand  firm, 
and  in  particular  to  put  away  the  pre- 
sumption with  which  imperfect  knowledge, 
or  even  mere  hypotheses,  are  wont  to  be 
set  up  in  the  place  of  the  inward  conviction 
as  to  the  existence  and  worth  of  super- 
sensual  things. 

Highly  as  humanity  has  cause  to  value 
science  and  its  steady  advance,  it  would, 
nevertheless,  take  a  tremendous  back- 
ward step,  if  one  should  be  able  to  re- 
move from  the  sphere  of  its  life  and  from 
the  motives  of  its  actions  everything  that 
is  not  scientifically  provable.  This  is  the 
ideal  of  many  educated  people  of  our 
time,  but  it  is  a  false  and  a  very  inade- 
quate one. 

Our  knowledge  is  patchwork,  and  will 
remain  such.  We  shall  scarcely  ever  be 
able  to  know  even  everything  that  con- 
cerns ourselves.  Nor  do  the  strongest 
motives  of  our  best  actions  spring  from 
the  sphere  of  knowledge ;  otherwise  the 
most  learned  people  must  always  be  the 
most  perfect,  which  is  by  no  means  the 
244 


case.  Our  spiritual  Ego  is  rooted  rather 
in  the  Unexplainable,  and  experience 
shows  that  if  this  something  unexplain- 
able  is  ever  taken  from  the  Ego  in 
questions  of  faith,  it  tries  to  make  up 
for  the  loss  by  adopting  some  superstition 
or  other. 

Of  all  the  objects  of  faith,  however, 
faith  in  Christ  is  historically  the  best  es- 
tablished, humanly  the  most  intelligible, 
and  as  a  matter  of  personal  experience 
the  most  easily  found  to  be  true.  If  in 
any  man  it  is  not  all  this,  truly  and 
enduringly,  then  the  cause  lies  in  his  own 
will,  or  absence  of  will,  for  which  the 
Gospel  of  John  finds  the  correcl  expres- 
sion, "  as  many  as  received  him,  to  them 
gave  he  the  right  to  become  children  of 
God."  Luther  also  truly  says :  "  Because 
the  expression  c  to  trust  God  and  serve 
Him  '  must  be  so  elastic  that  every  man 
follows  after  his  own  thoughts,  and  one 
thinks  so  and  the  other  thus,  therefore  He 
has  fixed  Himself  to  a  certain  place  and 
to  a  certain  person,  since  He  wants  to  be 
found  and  met  in  such  a  way  that  one 
may  not  miss  Him."  A  man's  faith  is, 
therefore,  itself  no  force  or  power,  else 
superstition  must  also  be  such,  but  all 
true  power  in  spiritual  things  is  the  property 


of  God.  But  he  summons  this  power 
and  makes  its  appearance  upon  earth 
possible. 

Only,  this  is  likewise  true,  that  Chris- 
tianity has  no  effect  in  a  man  whose  spirit.  <•- 
is  unbroken,  who  has  no  inner  humility, 
but  then  it  remains  an  empty  form  at 
best.  If  it  is  then  united  with  the  office 
of  teaching,  or  with  some  other  preten- 
sion of  a  special  position  or  distinction,  it 
conduces  to  the  man's  destruction.  What 
is  regarded  in  the  outer  life  as  an  irrep- 
arable harm,  "  a  broken  existence/'  a 
rent  that  runs  through  all  the  plans  of 
life,  is  not  at  all  such  in  the  inner  ;  on  the 
contrary,  that  is  the  soil  in  which  faith 
in  Christ  best  prospers,  and  they  of  all 
men  are  most  to  be  pitied  who  despair 
just  at  the  moment  when  they  find  them- 
selves in  such  a  position  and  can  not  grasp 
how  near  they  are  to  salvation. 

From  this  moment  of  humility  there 
enters  into  man  the  real  regenerative 
power  of  the  good,  which  springs  from 
that  true  righteousness  which  "  counts " 
with  God. 

His  further  journey  is,  on  the  one 
hand,  much  easier  than  is  often  repre- 
sented, for  nothing  more  is  now  required 
246 


of  the  man  for  which  he  has  not  power 
and  insight  in  sufficient  measure,  together 
with  a  gladness  of  hope  that  can  no  longer 
be  wholly  troubled,  and  with  a  special,  per- 
sonal guidance  that  lightens  all.  But,  on 
the  other  hand,  it  is  more  difficult  than  is, 
in  this  first  moment,  believed.  For  life  is 
yet  far  from  its  termination  ;  indeed,  now 
is  its  real  starting-point,  and  there  begins 
a  long  series  of  occurrences  which  all  have 
the  purpose  of  showing  man  his  real 
nature  more  clearly  than  he  was  in  posi- 
tion to  bear  earlier,  and  of  gradually 
being  no  longer  indulgent  toward  him 
in  any  respect,  as  was  hitherto  in  great 
measure  the  case.  For  "  Zion  shall  be 
redeemed  with  judgment,  and  her  con- 
verts with  righteousness."  But  all  this 
happens  only  in  the  following,  or  even, 
now  and  then,  in  the  final,  period  of  life ; 
before,  it  would  have  been  quite  im- 
possible. 

Ill 

The  difference  between  this  "  new  life," 
as  Dante  already  called  it,  and  the  earlier 
seems  not  to  be  very  great  at  first,  and 
particularly  not  so  great  as  fantasy,  which 
always  flies  higher  than  reality,  and  en- 
thusiasm, which  must  accompany  every 

247 


great  resolve,  had  expected.  Indeed,  it 
is  possible  that  there  will  still  be  moments 
in  which  the  soul,  freed  from  the  slavery 
of  selfishness,  is  seized  with  a  certain 
backward-glancing  desire  for  the  "  flesh- 
pots  of  Egypt "  ;  for,  in  truth,  the  old 
"  enjoyment  of  life "  fades  away  only  by 
slow  degrees. 

But  there  is  one  essential  difference  that 
is  always  noticeable :  first  of  all,  in  the 
taking  away  of  the  feeling  of  fear  and 
anxiety  before  an  uncertain  future,  and  of 
the  continual  fluctuation  between  exulta- 
tion and  dejection,  which  never  let  the 
feeling  of  security  prevail.  But  now  there 
is  a  fixed  point  where  there  is  always  rest. 
From  this  there  follows,  of  itself,  more 
patience  with  oneself  and  others,  and  less 
dependence  upon  them,  besides  a  juster 
discernment  for  the  essential  in  all  things, 
and  therewith  the  true  wisdom  of  life  that 
springs  therefrom.  Finally  (and  this  is  the 
chief  matter),  there  is  an  absence  of  the 
continuous  sense  of  sin  because  it  can 
always  be  at  once  abolished,  and  there  is 
a  certainty  of  the  right  road,  of  steady 
advance,  and  of  a  good  outcome  at  the 
end  of  life :  "  the  path  of  the  righteous  is 
as  the  shining  light  that  shineth  more  and 
more  unto  the  perfect  day." 
248 


The  first  period  of  this  division  of  life 
is  usually  filled  up  with  the  continuous 
strengthening  and  confirmation  of  these 
principles  through  tests  of  many  kinds. 
These  can  not  fail  to  appear  very  soon,  for 
faith,  in  spite  of  what  has  been  said  above, 
is  nothing  traditional  that  persists  once  for 
all,  but  something  that  must  be  engendered 
anew  daily  and  hourly.  A  faith  that  is  not 
always  living  and  present  could  not  be 
capable  of  successfully  withstanding  the 
attacks  of  Apollyon,  who  desires  surely  to 
reclaim  his  rebellious  subject. 

The  power  of  this  "  Spirit  of  the  World" 
is  very  great ;  happily,  one  experiences  this 
only  gradually  in  life ;  otherwise,  perhaps, 
no  one  would  have  the  courage  to  take  up 
the  battle  with  it.  But  there  is  one  power 
that  is  still  greater,  and  that  is  the  power 
of  God,  which  is  made  alive  in  a  man 
through  true  Christianity.  The  chief  matter 
in  this  (for  most)  the  longest  period  of  life 
is,  therefore,  steadfastness  and  courage. 
"  Hold  fast  that  which  thou  hast,  that 
no  one  take  thy  crown ; "  and  look  not 
back,  when  thou  hast  once  laid  hand  to 
plough. 

Perhaps  the  most  remarkable  thing  in 
this  period  of  life  is  the  union  in  man  of 
divine  control  with  freedom.  Whatever 

249 


God  wills,  he  carries  out  in  the  man — easily, 
if  he  gives  up  his  will,  with  difficulty  and 
sorrow,  if  he  resists  or  desires  to  go  another 
way,  and  no  power  in  the  world  can  any  longer 
prevent  it.  But  there  are,  nevertheless,  long 
portions  of  time  at  this  stage  of  life  when  all 
principles  or  doctrines  of  belief  refuse  their 
service,  and  everything  transcendental  per- 
sists in  appearing  again  as  a  mere  dream 
and  sport  of  fantasy.  Those  are  the  danger- 
ous times  in  which  the  soul  must  keep 
itself  quite  still  and  beware  of  all  decisive 
activity.  But  if  it  is  obliged  to  act,  then 
let  it  say  with  the  Spanish  poet,  "  And  be 
my  life  or  truth  or  dream,  right  must  my 
actions  be." 

There  must  especially  rise  to  full  cer- 
tainty in  the  soul  the  conviction  that  an 
eternal  divine  order  exists,  against  which 
all  the  might  of  men  who  still  have  free- 
dom of  action  contends  quite  vainly,  and 
that  all  real  success  and  all  true  happiness 
consists  only  in  the  free  harmony  of  the  free 
human  will  with  this  order,  and  that  pun- 
ishment does  not  follow  every  violation 
of  this  harmony,  but  resides  within  it,  and 
can  only  be  set  aside  through  God's 
mercy.  Then,  as  the  Berlenburg  Bible 
says,  "the  commands  of  God  acquire  a 
pleasant  aspect,  and  we  become  their  good 
250 


friends  and  look  upon  them  as  true  helps 
and  preservers,  by  whose  means  God 
wishes  to  set  to  one  side  whatever  hinders 
us  from  companionship  and  union  with 
Him." 

Only  when  this  conviction  has  become 
established  within  us,  can  we  have  a  guid- 
ing principle  for  fruitful  activity  outward ; 
before,  it  is  too  early,  and  so  in  most  cases 
without  result.  Salvation  is  not  a  doctrine 
in  which  one  can  remain  quite  the  same, 
can  say  Lord,  Lord,  and  yet  be  far  from 
him,  but  it  is  some  actual  thing  that  really 
happens  to  us  if  we  give  up  our  will  to  it. 

But  in  order  that  this  may  be  able  to 
happen  to  us,  we  must  first  be  free  from 
self-love,  from  self-concern  in  all  its 
forms ;  that  is  the  difficult  work  that  is 
wrought  within  us  slowly,  with  many  a 
halting-place  and  with  much  cross-bearing. 
For  we  must  be  quite  empty  of  ourselves 
before  we  can  receive  everything  that  we 
need  for  our  understanding  and  feeling, 
but  it  must  come  in  daily  rations  like  the 
manna  of  the  Old  Testament,  not  all  at 
once  as  the  crafty  "  old  man "  would 
much  rather  have  it,  so  as  to  be  as  inde- 
pendent as  possible  of  God's  daily  grace ; 
that  is  the  "  last  error,  that  is  worse  than 
the  first."  To  train  us  thereto,  so  that  we 

251 


may  receive  the  right  gifts  in  their  fulness, 
is  the  meaning  of  our  life-guidance  up  to 
this  point ;  only  then,  and  not  before, 
will  our  activity  be  full  of  blessing.  In 
this  connection  the  "social  question" 
comes  in,  not  only  for  the  men  of  our 
time,  but  of  every  time ;  it  has  always 
existed,  and  always  will  exist,  so  long  as 
there  are  human  beings  ;  it  will  never  find 
its  solution  either  through  Church  or 
through  State,  but  only  through  the  eth- 
ical power  and  the  personal  love  of  infi- 
nitely many  individuals,  each  one  of  whom 
must,  in  the  sphere  of  work  indicated  to 
him,  do  that  which  is  specially  laid  upon 
him,  and  neither  bury  nor  exchange  his 
talent.  That  is  his  outward  task  in  life, 
which  he  may  neither  evade  nor  be  un- 
faithful to,  and  only  when  and  in  so  far 
as  he  is  just  to  this  shall  he  teach  it  to 
others  also,  and  help,  during  his  lifetime, 
to  maintain  this  teaching  of  love  upon  the 
earth.  When  once  money,  ambition,  and 
pleasure  no  longer  play  any  considerable 
role  with  a  man,  then  he  finds  so  much 
leisure  time  upon  his  hands  that  he  must 
really  look  about  him  for  some  activity 
to  fill  it  up,  else  he  runs  the  risk  of  fall- 
ing back,  through  tedium,  to  where  he 
was  before. 
252 


This  period  is,  therefore,  essentially  made 
up  of  work  and  struggle,  but  if  all  goes 
rightly,  the  work  is  more  and  more  joyous, 
done  with  greater  and  greater  gladness, 
and  without  any  feeling  of  distress,  and 
the  struggle  against  everything  undivine 
in  oneself  or  in  others  is  more  and  more 
victorious,  more  and  more  quiet;  and  in 
this  period  there  is  finally  "  a  rest  that  re- 
maineth  for  the  people  of  God/'  God  will 
give  them  the  end  they  are  waiting  for,  and 
an  end  that  is  not  sad,  like  that  of  so  many 
noble  men  who  had  a  different  aim  in  life. 

Schiller's  picture  is  not  the  right  one 
when  he  says,  "  Quietly,  with  vessel  barely 
saved,  the  old  man  returns  to  the  harbor 
from  which,  in  youth,  he  set  out  with  a 
thousand  masts."  No ;  thankful  for  all  he 
has  done  and  suffered,  content  with  what 
he  has  become  through  God's  mercy,  and 
with  the  confident  prospect  of  a  yet  greater 
and  better  field  of  action,  he  already,  with- 
out waiting  for  his  death-bed,  lays  his  life- 
accounts  to  one  side,  and  looks  with  simple 
quietness  upon  the  (for  him)  unimportant 
transition  into  a  new  sphere  of  life. 

IV 

Age  comes  on  suddenly,  in  most  cases ; 
very  often  with  some  special  event,  usually 

253 


some  sickness,  which  performs  the  function 
of  what  is  called  picket-duty  in  military 
life.  Then  oftentimes  there  is  disclosed, 
just  as  suddenly,  the  difference  (hitherto 
concealed)  between  men  and  the  various 
outcomes  of  their  lives.  While  some  still 
endeavor  with  redoubled  eagerness  to 
enjoy  the  last  fruits  of  their  autumnal 
days  (though  age  often  reveals  them  now 
as  so  little  worth  while),  or  else  give  them- 
selves up  to  pessimistic  despair  over  the 
transitoriness  of  all  things  earthly  (which 
always  forms  the  close  of  each  great  period 
of  pleasure),  more  earnestly  minded  spirits 
are  now  for  the  first  time  saying :  "Whither 
am  I  bound  ?  The  world's  call  to  pleasure 
sounds  hollow  to  me,  now  that  the  doors 
of  eternity  stand  open  before ;  I  am  sated 
with  the  whited  bowl  of  untruth  and  its 
vapid  draughts,  and  I  bear  my  empty 
pitchers  to  thy  springs,  O  thou  city  of 
God !  "  These  are  the  laborers  that  stood 
idle  all  the  day,  or  fatigued  themselves 
with  useless  toil.  These  also  will  be  ac- 
cepted still,  and  will  receive  their  penny  at 
the  end  of  the  day's  labor  as  well  as  those 
who  came  earlier.  The  mercy  of  the  Lord 
of  Toil  thus  wills  it,  though  many  murmur 
against  this,  even  yet. 

But   it   is   better,   nevertheless,  if  this 
254 


incoming  has  taken  place  earlier  and  the 
third  period  is  not  a  time  of  turning  about, 
but  merely  the  natural  sequence  and  de- 
velopment of  the  second.  For  the  true 
steps  of  life  have  about  them  something 
of  the  Dantean  Paradise  ;  namely  this,  that 
in  each  of  them,  even  in  the  lowest,  already 
resides  something  of  the  uppermost  — 
something  that  pacifies  the  soul,  without 
longing  for  more,  and  yet  with  hope  for 
more. 

In  the  life  of  people  who  have  become 
old,  three  sorts  of  dispositions  are  regularly 
shown.  The  ordinary  one,  when  outward 
circumstances  are  favorable,  is  that  of 
elderly  people  who  are  fond  of  life  and 
who  want  as  much  as  possible  to  enjoy  the 
remnant  of  their  existence  in  a  finer  or 
coarser  manner,  and  accordingly  sink  now 
and  then  into  caricatures  of  youth.  The 
basis  of  this  disposition  is  selfishness,  which, 
even  in  its  finer  form,  at  last  affects  un- 
pleasantly every  one  who  meets  it.  Aristo- 
cratic idlers  have  such  an  exit  to  life,  for 
the  most  part.  A  worthier  end  is  when 
people  who  have  been  busy  for  the  most 
of  life  take  their  repose,  whether  it  be  a 
resting  upon  their  laurels,  or,  as  more  fre- 
quently happens,  upon  their  accumulated 
capital.  These  are,  in  the  best  instances, 

255 


the  cheerful  old  people  who  are  treasured 
and  cared  for  by  their  relatives,  spend  their 
last  days  in  respectably  doing  nothing,  revel 
in  memories  of  their  youth,  or  student- 
years,  or  travels,  or  campaigns,  and  now 
and  then  compose  memoirs,  or  let  their 
jubilees  be  celebrated.  Apart  from  a  certain 
vanity  and  pettiness  that  is  always  joined 
therewith,  this  is  an  innocent  exit  to  life, 
and  the  world  is  as  a  rule  lenient  toward 
it  —  if  for  no  other  reason,  at  least  for  the 
reason  that  these  people  no  longer  stand 
in  anybody's  way ;  therefore  it  gladly  gives 
them  a  handsome  burial  and  a  few  fitting 
obituary  notices  in  the  papers  on  the  day 
of  the  funeral,  and  with  that  its  concern- 
ment is  definitely  fulfilled.  The  third  kind 
of  conclusion  to  life  is  the  moving  forward 
to  a  higher  existence,  the  hand  continuously 
at  the  plough,  never  looking  backward  to 
the  past,  but  always  directing  the  eyes 
toward  what  is  yet  to  be  attained.  This 
conception  of  life  is  really  only  possible 
with  persons  who  believe  in  a  future  life ; 
nevertheless,  it  also  appears  among  other 
earnest  workers,  but  is  then  joined  with 
sadness  over  the  continual  decline  of  the 
powers.  This  is  the  worthiest,  indeed  the 
only  worthy  exit  to  life,  though  often  ac- 
companied with  sorrows  of  some  sort,  to 
256 


keep  one  in  fit  condition  for  conflict.  These 
three  endings  of  life  resemble  the  three 
caskets  in  Shakespeare's  drama :  the  first, 
in  the  golden  casket,  is  outwardly  the  most 
splendid,  but  within  is  full  of  emptiness 
and  is  at  bottom  to  be  despised  ;  the  sec- 
ond, in  the  silver  casket,  is  not  unworthy, 
but  somewhat  "ordinary  "  ;  the  third  con- 
tains, in  mostly  invisible  form,  the  real 
crown  of  a  life  that  has  been  wisely  under- 
stood and  well-employed  to  the  very  end, 
and  that  bears  within  itself  the  full  as- 
surance of  a  yet  better  continuation 
beyond. 

At  any  rate,  the  special  task  of  the  final 
step  of  life  is  living  in  all  sincerity  in  near- 
ness to  God  —  something  that  it  is  much 
easier  to  think  of  than  to  describe.  The 
descriptions  of  those  who  have  themselves 
experienced  this  suddenly  leave  us,  as  a 
rule,  in  the  lurch,  whether  because  they 
lived  in  order  to  act,  and  not  to  describe, 
or  because  they  disdained  saying  things 
about  themselves  which,  at  their  stage  of 
advancement,  seemed  matters  of  course 
and  nowise  meritorious,  but  something  to 
be  continuously  received  in  humility.  The 
goal  of  this  period  is  just  here — no  longer 
to  receive  anything  for  one's  own  sake,  but 
to  become  a  blessing  to  others  in  that  hum- 

257 


ble  spirit  which  now  has  come  to  belong 
to  the  virtues  that  have  been  won. 

To  begin  with,  there  will  usually  come 
a  great  and  final  trial ;  for  all  men  in  whom 
God  takes  a  real  interest  (if  we  may  so 
speak)  must  again  and  again,  in  the  differ- 
ent periods  of  their  life,  pass  anew  into  a 
kind  of  smelting  fire,  whose  glow,  as 
Dante  says,  alone  brings  the  spirit  to  its 
majority  and  separates  the  inferior  ele- 
ments of  its  nature,  which  perhaps  appear 
as  still  necessary  at  a  lower  stage.  With- 
out a  firm  trust  in  God,  such  as  should 
now  exist  in  this  final  period  of  life,  these 
last  trials  were  often  not  to  be  endured ; 
yet  in  them,  nevertheless,  each  hard  blow 
now  has  a  tenfold  effect.  It  is  the  best 
sign  of  advance  if  the  soul  possesses  the 
grace  to  welcome  this  suffering  and  not 
to  be  tired  of  it  until  God  himself  re- 
moves it  as  quite  superfluous.  Psycho- 
logically correct  in  this  regard  is  the 
remark  of  St.  Angela  of  Foligni,  that 
men  at  this  stage  must  still,  for  their  pen- 
ance, harbor  within  themselves  for  a  time, 
quite  against  their  will,  the  very  faults 
which  once  they  voluntarily  cultivated. 

Out  of  all  this  there  then  arises  the 
thoroughly  humble  man,  no  longer  in  the 
least  infatuated  with  himself,  to  whom 


everything  is  right  that  befalls  him,  who 
believes  he  deserved  nothing  better,  but 
something  still  worse  if  pure  justice  had 
been  done,  and  who  can  let  everything 
please  him  if  it  is  God's  will.  But  if  this 
is  all  genuine  and  not  mere  pious  talking, 
this  is  a  difficult  task  for  which  the  man 
will  be  completely  qualified  only  toward 
the  end  of  his  life.  For  self-love  must 
be  burnt  out  still  more  thoroughly  than 
before,  and  he  must  be  inflicted,  or  at  least 
threatened,  with  the  hardest  blow  that  can 
be  given  to  his  special  failing.  If  he 
passes  through  this  without  ever  losing 
his  trust  in  God,  then  he  has  approached 
nearer  to  the  divine  than  could  happen  in 
any  other  way  ;  and  if  there  is  such  a  thing 
at  all  as  a  life  of  blessed  spirits  after  the 
fashion  of  our  present  feelings  and  con- 
ceptions, then  he  will  be  brought  so 
near  to  this  by  acquiring  such  a  temper- 
ament, that  a  transition  to  that  life  will 
now  appear  conceivable  and  possible  to 
him. 

But  in  that  case  the  last  aggravations  of 
the  earthly  life  have,  without  doubt,  the 
further  purpose  of  making  the  departure 
from  it  less  difficult  for  the  man  thus 
tried  ;  just  as  nothing  in  old  people  pleases 
us  less,  or  makes  a  more  vulgar  impression 

259 


upon  us,  than  when  they  still  hang  tightly 
on  to  life. 

One  of  the  best  aids  is  never  to  look 
back,  because  he  who  in  Purgatory  cc  looks 
back,  must  turn  back  "  ;  and  further,  not 
to  lose  a  single  minute  of  life,  but  to  keep 
one's  full  activity  up  to  the  last  moment. 
For  the  purpose  of  life  in  the  period  of 
age  is  to  bear  fruit,  not  to  repose,  and  so 
long  as  something  is  still  left  to  be  done, 
what  is  already  done  is  to  be  regarded  as 
nothing. 

The  characteristic  quality  of  this  sort  of 
old  people  is  not  an  imaginary  "  saintli- 
ness," but  their  wholesouledness.  The 
only  saintliness  we  attain  to  on  this  earth 
consists  in  a  complete  harmony  with  the 
divine  will  and  in  a  complete  readiness  to 
fall  in  with  it,  so  that  no  serious  struggle 
between  good  and  evil  any  longer  finds 
place  within  ourselves.  On  the  other 
hand,  a  mediaeval  saint  rightly  says  that 
saintliness,  whenever  it  is  genuine,  sets 
the  outward  man  in  order  also.  For  God 
is  a  "  God  of  order  "  and  by  no  means  a 
friend  of  singularities  of  any  sort,  espe- 
cially in  outward  things.  People  who  set 
a  value  upon  such  singularities,  though 
they  may  not  be  wholly  spurious  "  saints," 
are  certainly,  nevertheless,  very  weak 
260 


ones,  whose  peculiarities  make  them 
sometimes  uneasy  to  live  with.  If  reli- 
gion, in  this  final  stage  of  life,  does  not  at 
least  set  such  things  right,  but  lets  the 
man  go  on  being  querulous  and  selfish 
and  difficult  for  those  around  him,  then  it 
has  never  been  of  much  worth.  A  special 
indication  of  the  ripeness  of  age,  further- 
more, is  the  union  of  qualities  which,  at 
other  periods  of  life,  are  wont  to  exclude 
one  another ;  for  example,  naivete  and 
shrewdness,  dignity  and  childlike  gayety, 
fineness  of  taste  and  complete  simplicity, 
sternness  and  gentleness,  clear  judgment 
and  enthusiasm  of  emotion.  This  alone 
gives  the  impression  of  completeness,  as 
far  as  is  possible  here  upon  earth. 

One  or  the  other  of  my  readers  may 
still  ask  how  one  can  remain  young  in  old 
age.  The  most  important  spiritual  means 
is  probably  "  always  to  be  learning  some 
new  thing,"  to  have  an  interest  in  some- 
thing and  to  keep  something  always  before 
oneself.  Therefore  the  great  apostle  of 
Christianity  said  shortly  before  his  depar- 
ture :  "  Forgetting  the  things  which  are  be- 
hind, and  stretching  forward  to  the  things 
which  are  before,  I  press  on  toward  the 
goal,  unto  the  prize  of  the  high  calling  of 

261 


God  in  Christ  Jesus :  let  us  therefore,  as 
many  as  be  perfect,  be  thus  minded,  and 
if  in  anything  ye  are  otherwise  minded, 
even  this  shall  God  reveal  unto  you." 
This,  then,  is  a  clear  and  simple  road,  and 
in  this  direction  is  already  contained  the 
final  watchword  of  life :  Obedience. 
Everything  that  is  done  for  oneself, 
for  one's  own  elevation,  even  in  the  best 
sense,  has,  nevertheless,  a  slight  after-taste 
of  self-seeking,  and  in  old  age  one  will 
scarcely  keep  his  life  spiritually  sound  to 
the  final  moment,  if  it  does  not  result  at 
last  in  an  absolute  military  obedience,  and 
in  a  "  harvest  of  God," — reaped,  that  is,  for 
Him,  and  not  for  ourselves.  The  secret 
of  religion  lies  indeed  in  one's  keeping 
near  to  God,  in  all  the  stages  of  life ;  but 
first,  one  must  learn  to  endure  it  (not  to 
flee  from  it) ;  then  to  seek  it ;  and  finally 
to  have  it,  and  "  dwell  in  the  everlasting 
glow." 

That  this  can  not  happen  upon  earth 
altogether  without  suffering,  even  to  the 
very  end,  lies  in  the  nature  of  things,  and 
is  shown  in  the  life  of  many  admirable 
men,  who  have  eagerly  longed  for  rest, 
and  have  said  with  old  Simeon  at  the  end 
of  their  days,  "Now  lettest  thou  thy 
bondservant  depart,  O  Master,  according 
262 


to  thy  word,  in  peace. "  Besides,  as  al- 
ready pointed  out,  it  may  really  happen 
that  a  so-called  beautiful  death,  in  the 
circle  of  one's  own  people  and  amidst  the 
general  recognition  of  one's  fellow-citizens, 
may  not  at  all  mean  the  best  destiny  and 
the  highest  recognition  on  the  part  of  God, 
as  would  some  heroic  death  which  is  itself 
a  last  deed  done  for  country  or  for 
humanity.  But  our  time  has  become  so 
feeble  in  its  Christianity  that  such  a 
thought  now  lies  quite  outside  the  reck- 
oning of  most  men,  even  the  most  devout. 
But  at  any  rate  it  does  not  lie  in  their 
power  of  will  what  form  their  death  shall 
take,  any  more  than  formerly  what  form 
their  life  should  take,  and  they  must,  under 
any  circumstance,  have  found  their  peace 
with  God  in  respect  to  this  last  of  all  life- 
problems  also. 

The  most  beautiful  thing  about  a  life 
near  to  its  close  is  its  repose  of  soul,  that 
abounding  peace  which  nothing  can  shake 
any  longer,  and  which  has  fought  it  out 
with  God  and  men,  and  has  prevailed. 

The  essential  element  in  all  religion  req- 
uisite thereto  is  very  simple,  and  really 
lies  already  in  the  forgotten  meaning  of 
that  word  itself.  It  consists  in  the  care- 

263 


ful  and  constant  maintenance  of  the 
"  bond "  which  unites  us  with  God, 
through  our  unfailing  good-will  toward 
Him,  and  through  our  renunciation  of  all 
that  stands  in  the  way  —  what  the  Scrip- 
tures call  "seeking  God."  This  is  our 
part.  Then  God  also  comes  "  ere  we  are 
aware,  and  lets  much  good  fall  to  our 
share."  He  comes  even  to  such  as  know 
him  only  very  imperfectly  (and,  for  that 
matter,  that  is  the  case  with  us  all),  if  only 
there  is  a  sincere  longing  for  Him  in  their 
hearts. 

But  unless  He  does  come,  each  and 
every  religious  practice,  in  whatsoever 
form  it  now  takes  or  may  conceivably 
take  hereafter,  is  but  a  still-born  device 
of  man,  and  never  procures  us  what  we 
are  all  nevertheless  seeking  —  Happiness. 


264 


,',--',;.       ..:>.-:  t 
OF 

By  CARL  HILTY 


HAPPINESS 


Translated   by  the    Rev.    Francis    G.    Peabody,   Plummer 
Professor  of  Christian  Morals  in  Harvard  University 


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PROFESSOR  HILTY'S  essays  long  ago  took  rank 
in  Europe  as  classics  in  the  sphere  of  personal 
culture  in  ethics  and  religion. 

Without  haste,  without  fuss,  he  seems  to  see 
more  deeply  into  the  ordinary  experiences  of 
human  life  than  most  men  can.  There  is  with 
all  his  insight  a  simple  gentleness  and  sympathy 
in  his  way  of  treating  the  deepest  things  of 
life,  the  primal  motives  that  stir  the  soul.  He 
discusses  the  Art  of  Work,  How  to  Fight  the 
Battles  of  Life,  Good  Habits,  The  Art  of  Hav- 
ing Time,  Happiness,  The  Meaning  of  Life. 


By  THOMAS  R.  SLICER 

Pastor  of  the  Church  of  All  Souls,  New  York,  Author  of 
"The  Power  and  Promise  of  the  Liberal  Faith,"  etc. 


The  Way  to  Happiness 


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DR.  SLICER  has  written  a  practical,  readable 
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happy folk  are  so  not  because  there  has  been 
any  increase  in  the  world's  misery,  but  because 
the  consolations  upon  which  people  have  de- 
pended in  the  past  seem  to  them  inadequate. 
The  author  therefore  first  restates  certain  old, 
old  principles,  which  seem  to  have  lost  force 
from  detachment,  in  the  forms  of  conception, 
and  in  the  speech,  of  modern  life.  The  making 
of  a  character  which  is  for  itself  a  sufficient 
consolation  seems  to  him  the  only  permanent 
relief  from  unhappiness,  and  he  sets  forth  the 
positive  principles  on  which  such  a  character 
is  based. 


2a 


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Rational  Living 

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Reconstruction  in  Theology 

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By  the  Rev.  HUGH  BLACK 

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The  Practice  of  Self=Culture 

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3 


By  FRANCIS  G.  PEABODY 

Plummer  Professor  of  Christian  Morals  in  Harvard  University 

Jesus  Christ  and  the  Christian  Character 

An  examination  of  the  teaching  of  Jesus  in  its  relation  to  some 
of  the  moral  problems  of  personal  life. 

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Transcript. 

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By  NEWELL  DWIGHT  HILLIS 

Pastor  of  Plymouth  Church,  Brooklyn 

The  Quest  of  Happiness 

A  study  of  victory  over  life's  troubles. 

"'The  Quest  of  Happiness'  is  Dr.  Hillis's  very  best 
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